The mission of The Emily Program is to provide exceptional, individualized care leading to recovery from eating disorders. The Emily Program’s vision is a world of peaceful relationships with food, weight, and body image, where everyone with an eating disorder can experience recovery.
Watch an overview of The Emily Program from the ED-TEP Coordinator: Kirsten Nielsen, RDN, LDN
Eating Disorders Concentration
The eating disorder concentration includes eight weeks of in-depth training in nutritional care of individuals within the full spectrum of eating disorder diagnoses. This includes:
- Binge Eating Disorder
- Bulimia Nervosa
- Avoidant Restrictive Food Intake Disorder
- Anorexia Nervosa
- Other Specified Feeding or Eating Disorders
Rotation placement will be divided between The Emily Program’s Minnesota residential facilities and outpatient sites. This will include supervised practice experiences in various levels of eating disorder care for children, adolescents, and adult populations.
During your rotations, you will be immersed in The Emily Program’s process of providing comprehensive, personalized treatment for eating disorders – specifically you will work alongside Registered Dietitians to experience the following:
- Observation of, and active involvement in RD services including, nutrition assessments, individual nutrition sessions, nutrition groups, therapeutic support meals/snacks, treatment team meetings
- Assist in providing nutrition therapy including meal plan recommendations, managing meal plan changes, nutrition guidance throughout various stages of care
- Observation RDs modeling TEP’s Nutrition Philosophy
- Nutrition services-related documentation
- Skills needed to provide basic nutrition counseling and therapy
- Skills needed to identify and address eating disorder behaviors
- Skills needed to assess a client’s readiness to change and promote client-driven goal setting
- Participation in coaching clients during therapeutic supported meals/snacks (TSMs)
- Multi-disciplinary team collaboration
- Transition planning
The Emily Program’s Nutrition Philosophy endorses the inclusiveness of all foods and values the absence of food judgment. We understand the complex role food plays and the diverse eating situations life presents. As such, we aim to provide nutrition and food-related experiences, education, counsel, and skills that enable an individual’s journey to a more mindful, flexible, balanced, autonomous, and sustainable relationship with food.
We foster a Can Eat Culture believing that individuals can positively influence their eating disorder behavior by engaging in staff facilitated therapeutic supported meals and snacks. Ultimately, a Can Eat Culture paradigm supports overall health and well-being, with a sense of freedom and true choice in finding ways to purchase, prepare and consume food.
As a dietetic intern you will be involved in coaching clients during TSMs and will be expected to promote and model eating in alignment with the Nutrition Philosophy. If you have questions about this please contact the TEP/Eating Disorder Concentration Coordinator, Kirsten Nielsen - [email protected].