Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder (ARFID)

Those impacted by ARFID and their loved ones can learn about the emotions and perfectionism behind eating disorders on our educational site. Find information about how to counter those emotions and become better equipped to make continuing, tangible progress. Building knowledge and skills with the support of experts and peers can give families the resilience and long-term strategies they need to help their loved ones while taking of themselves in the process.  Our center is developing a website which will offer:

• Moderated live online group sessions giving participants the opportunity to interact with other parents facing the same challenges. Parents share ideas and the moderator guides group discussions for maximum benefit to all.  Children connect with other children within their age group for “food adventures”.
• A moderated message board which enables participants to ask questions and receive an answer within 1 business day.  The content of these dialogues will be monitored to ensure the accuracy of information being shared. 
• Educational webinars for parents to help understand this eating disorder and develop strategies for managing day-to-day hurdles.
• Online learning modules, beginning with Off the C.U.F.F., a parent skills manual for parents of children with an eating disorder, written by Nancy Zucker, MD, a child and family psychologist and eating disorder specialist who is the director of the Duke Eating Disorder Center.

Our Parent Training Weekend Workshop for Selective Eating is designed to be an educational program to provide parents with the knowledge and tools they need to get a jump start on treatment. Please check back for future dates. Consider this a 'crash course' where we teach parents skills that allow you to support, encourage and reinforce your children as they practice changing their relationship with food.  

The weekend is structured as a series of educational lectures with each lecture followed by a Q&A session with a team member from the Duke Center for Eating Disorders.

In these sessions, we practice what was just discussed in the prior lecture and develop a series of “action items” to implement this new strategy at home.  Here is an example of the two-day workshop schedule and topics.

Our immersive family program is a comprehensive outpatient treatment program consisting of one, 5-day primary treatment week and post-treatment follow-up offered for Avoidant Restrictive Food Intake Disorder (ARFID).  The program focuses on helping individuals who are extremely sensitive to their internal and external experience. The goal is to help these individuals manage the intensity of that experience without compromising the vividness and richness of what they feel or limiting the breadth of their options. This program will start again in 2019.

We are developing an educational, supportive, web-based community for eating disorder management. This site will be the support system for families upon their completion of our immersive family program. Having this ongoing support and community available to families is crucial and has been a critical piece missing from our prior immersive programs. The anticipated timeframe for the website launch is early summer 2017. 
 
Active discussions are taking place among upper management regarding the planning and preparation to reinstate our Immersive Family Program. At present, no information is available. When key decisions are made in this regard, a newsletter will be emailed to families on our list and our website will be updated. The anticipated public launch of the website is January 2019.
 
Thank you so much for your understanding and patience as we move toward a better service model and continued education and community support.

For more information on any of these offerings, please please contact us at 919-668-0398.