Eating Disorders Families Australia (EDFA) has been established by a group of Australian parents and supports who have cared for and treated a young person with an eating disorder, to advocate for the needs and roles of other parents during this experience. Parents and families of children under 18 years are seen by the service system to be vital to treatment and recovery, but not necessarily equipped or supported to be a part of this process. Parents and families of adult children over 18 years have an even less clear mandate and yet have a vital role to play in their family member’s well being and recovery.
Eating Disorders Families Australia (EDFA) acknowledges that not all parents and families are prepared to access their own resources and support or capable of playing a central role in the treatment and recovery of their family member with an eating disorder. However, it is best practice for all parents and families to be given the option and support to maximise their role in the care team. Such collaborative approaches result in better long-term outcomes for our loved ones, more resilient families and less impact on our health system.
Eating Disorders Families Australia (EDFA) sees parents and families of people with eating disorders as parents, carers, siblings, extended family or significant others.
Want to understand what it is like to care for someone with an eating disorder?
Gregg and Sarah Brown, parents of a young person who is recovered from an eating disorder, made this amazing video documentary for EDFA featuring 3 families telling their story of the impact of the eating disorder on their family and what they needed to do to support their loved one. To view this video go to https://youtu.be/anDnIvu4FjI
Access Peer Support
Learning and hearing from others who ‘get it’ and can provide helpful practical advice is a key to being able to support our family members effectively. EDFA ‘get it’ and are here to work on providing increased opportunities for people to connect in face to face settings, as well as online. For more information, click HERE
Can you help us with your time or skills please??
Eating Disorders Families Australia is a volunteer, not for profit organisation, supporting and advocating for parents and carers as they battle to save their loved one from an eating disorder, which are potentially life-threatening mental illnesses.
EDFA has two exciting initiatives requiring support with marketing communications/graphic design and administration.
- TBT-S: Following the success of our Temperament Based Treatment with Supports (TBT-S) training around Australia in 2019, EDFA will offer this training again in 2020 to encourage and support more clinicians to apply the TBT-S methodology. EDFA will need more people to help get this off the ground by joining our committee.
Skills needed include:
- Marketing: writing material for website, social media, and promotional flyers.
- General administration and logistical arrangement: arranging accommodation, venues, and minute taking.
If you are ready to contribute in this way, please contact the Portfolio Leader, Gordon Brockway, at gordon.brockway@edfa.org.au who would be delighted to hear from you!
- Strive Carer Support Groups: EDFA are planning to expand on their successful Melbourne Eating Disorders Parent Support Group, by training facilitators to run local support groups in each state.
Help needed including:
- Parents or carers with lived experience of caring for someone with an eating disorder (who is currently well) to volunteer to be trained as support group facilitators to run monthly meetings (as part of the EDFA team) to support other parents and carers as they navigate the difficult road to guiding a loved one towards recovery.
- Brochure drop, fundraise in your local area
If you feel you would like to give back to support other carers, be a voice of hope and encouragement, and are willing to be trained as a facilitator, or can help in any other way, please contact Christine Naismith at christine.naismith@edfa.org.au.
Of course, we need funding to support our initiatives, so please become a member of EDFA for just $25 per year (https://www.edfa.org.au/members/become-a-member/individual-membership-application/), or consider making a donation to our volunteer, not-for-profit organisation (https://www.edfa.org.au/support-us/make-a-donation/make-a-donation/).
Click here for our Facebook page – recent posts are below:
Covid-19 Information & a word from our EDFA Chairman....
My fellow EDFA board members and I are thinking of you and your families at this challenging time. It is very important that we all feel that we can reach out if we are experiencing difficulties. Thankfully, most of the normal support mechanisms for people with eating disorders and the families and carers continue to operate with Federal and State Governments, clinicians and the broader eating disorder and health sectors working together to ensure that, as much as possible, there is support available, when and where it is needed.
We are very pleased that Medicare funded eating disorder medical practitioner and allied health consultations are now available via telehealth and phone. The extension of the telehealth arrangements to people with eating disorders was announced by the Federal Health Minister on Sunday 29 March, including for consultations with GPs, psychiatrists, psychologists, dietitians, occupational therapists and social workers. The Australian and New Zealand Academy for Eating Disorders (ANZAED) has released an excellent summary of these telehealth arrangements including links to the relevant Department of Health fact sheets, which can be found at: www.anzaed.org.au/new-covid-19-bulk-billed-mbs-telehealth-services-eating-disorder-services/
Increasingly, community support for people with eating disorders and their families and carers is being transitioned into the online environment. It is important to check with your support organisation or clinician. A number of eating disorder organisations are also providing advice and tips to help people with eating disorders and their families and carers at this challenging time. This online information is important to access because many of the broader public messaging associated with the COVID-19 pandemic can cause anxiety and potentially be triggering for people with eating disorders. The advice that is being provided by the eating disorder sector is in addition to the general COVID-19 information that is being made available by the Federal and State and Territory Governments. Below are a number of useful website links:
Eating Disorder specific information:
National Eating Disorders Collaboration - www.nedc.com.au/news/show/35/covid-19-information (this site provides a good collation of the available information from various organisations)
The Butterfly Foundation - thebutterflyfoundation.org.au/covid-19/
Eating Disorders Victoria - www.eatingdisorders.org.au/find-support/covid-19-and-eating-disorders/ and www.eatingdisorders.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/COVID19-Factsheet-consumers-and-carers.pdf
The Victorian Centre for Excellence in Eating Disorders (CEED) - www.ceed.org.au/
Eating Disorders Qld - eatingdisordersqueensland.org.au/
General information:
Australian Government - www.australia.gov.au/
Federal Department of Health - www.health.gov.au/news/health-alerts/novel-coronavirus-2019-ncov-health-alert
Also check your State and Territory Government websites
There are also a number of phone help lines to support people with mental health issues. The Butterfly Foundation's 1800 334 673 hotline continues to operate thebutterflyfoundation.org.au/our-services/helpline/over-the-phone/. Beyond Blue has a good collation of the various national help lines and websites, which can found at: www.beyondblue.org.au/get-support/national-help-lines-and-websites. Beyond Blue has also been funded to develop a COVID-19 help line which will be operational in the near future.
At EDFA, we intend to continue operating our monthly strive peer support groups, transitioning to the online environment. Through our strivefacilitators, we will endeavour to make sure that you are informed when strive online support group meetings are happening so that you can participate in them. We do ask that you are a paid member of EDFA to take part, so if you haven’t joined as yet, it is only $25 for annual family membership & you can join up here:https://www.edfa.org.au/members/become-a-member/individual-membership-application/
We currently have strive Melbourne, Bendigo, Perth, Adelaide up & running, with strive Tasmania, A.C.T., Darwin & Cairns coming very soon.
In the meantime, we strongly encourage you to reach out for support if you need it and to continue communicating with your eating disorder clinicians, community support and fellow families and carers, including here at EDFA. Any questions about our strive support groups can be directed to christine.naismith@edfa.org.au
Best wishes,
David Garvey
Chair
Eating Disorders Families Australia
New: COVID-19 Bulk Billed MBS Telehealth Services - Eating Disorder Services - ANZAED
www.anzaed.org.au
The Australian government has just announced a new range of temporary MBS Services for Telehealth treatment to allow remote private treatment due to COVID-19, for a wide range of consultations includi...Butterfly’s #MAYDAYS campaign is fast approaching & this year they’re focusing on the barriers to accessing #eatingdisorder healthcare & support services. They’re calling on carers and anyone with lived experience of an #eatingdisorder to take this important survey:
www.surveymonkey.com/r/YCTTR2G
Please help inform them of your challenges by filling out this brief survey
While we are all in social isolation, please consider using some of your spare time to fill in this important survey by Swinburne University today (closes 9am Saturday 4th April) which will help to study the impact of the Covid-19 Pandemic on the mental health & wellbeing of Australian society as a whole.
Here is the link:
tinyurl.com/swin-covid19-survey
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