Kellie Lavender is a Registered Psychotherapist and Co-Director of the New Zealand Eating Disorders Clinic in Auckland, New Zealand, a private outpatient clinic offering evidence based treatments for eating disorders. Kellie has been working in the field of eating disorders for over 20 years with almost all eating disorder presentations with adolescents and adults. Over the past 12 years Kellie has specialized further in using FBT. She became a certified FBT therapist in 2013 and an Institute Faculty member in 2018. Kellie works with individuals and families and has a special interest in working with older adolescents and young adults within the FBT framework. She has presented widely on FBT at local and international conferences and has published a paper on rebooting FBT following perceived failed attempts. Kellie provides supervision to clinicians both in the public and private setting as well as specialist FBT training and consultation to treatment teams across New Zealand and internationally. She also provides training and supervision for Adolescent Focused Therapy (AFT) a manualized, empirically evaluated individual treatment for adolescent anorexia nervosa.

Consultation Modality: FBT & AFT.

Colleen will be available to provide Online Consultations post May 2023.

Colleen Alford is a senior social worker based at The Children’s Hospital at Westmead Eating Disorders Service. She has been working in the eating disorders field for 13 years. She has extensive experience with both inpatients and outpatients, primarily working in a family based therapy model.

Throughout 2017 and 2018 she provided Family Based Treatment training and ongoing consultation to over 500 clinicians as part of the NSW Eating Disorders Workforce Development Plan.

Colleen has been providing training and supervision in family therapy and family based treatment for over ten years. She has a special interest in AN and ASD, as well as eating disorders and trauma.

Consultation Modality: Consultation will be focused on working therapeutically with children, adolescents and families utilising evidence based, reflective practice.  My main modalities are Family Based Treatment and Systemic Family Therapy. Consultation will be based around case discussion and common themes that may emerge from these case discussions such as strengthening engagement and therapeutic alliance, managing complexity and conflict, utilising family strengths and expertise. The consultation group will be tailored to the group’s needs throughout the consultation process.

Watch this short Q&A session with social worker Colleen who talks about what to expect if you join her online consultation group:

Mandy Goldstein is a Clinical Psychologist who has worked in the treatment of eating disorders in the private practice context for more than 13 years. She has undertaken research on the dissemination of evidence based treatment to private practice, and is well placed to support those considering working in or transitioning to the private practice space. Mandy has also trained in day program and inpatient environments, and works with teens and adults across the spectrum of eating disorders.  She has provided supervision to those working in eating disorders since 2012 and runs workshops on the treatment of eating disorders. Mandy works with adults, teens and children with eating disorders, and uses a range of treatment models in her practice, most prominently Family-based treatment, and CBTe. She brings a range of experience across different treatment models, including a sound understanding of the core principles of working with eating disorders, as well as working with patients with trauma backgrounds.

Consultation Modality: Consultation groups will be via case presentation brought by consultees:

1. For those working with adults sessions will draw primarily from CBTe
2. For those working with teens, sessions will draw primarily from FBT, with some flexibility to include AFT & APT as needed.Sessions will be informed by an understanding of the core principles of eating disorders and their treatment, and will draw on other evidence based treatments including MANTRA, Interpersonal psychotherapy, and Adolescent Focused Therapy as needed. Sessions are intended to support both novice or more experienced clinicians wanting to enhance their skills and reflect on practice, and aim to support improved confidence and competence in working with this complex group of patients.
3. New: Tele-medicine consultation: multimodalThese sessions are aimed at helping manage the adaptation of your usual practice to telemedicine in the face of the pandemic. Topics will be adapted to suite individual needs in the group, but may include adapting your usual mode of practice to telemedicine, assisting patients with the impact on their eating disorder of the pandemic and social isolation, and their response to online therapy. These sessions will be useful for clinicians treating adults and / or children, working in different therapeutic modalities with a focus core principles in the treatment of eating disorders.

Watch this short Q&A session with Mandy Goldstein who talks about what to expect if you join her online consultation group:

Dr Amy Talbot is the director, founder and senior clinical psychologist at The Talbot Centre, a centre of excellence and innovation that houses Australia’s largest private multidisciplinary outpatient feeding clinic. In 2018 she was awarded Australian Psychologist of the Year at the inaugural Australian Allied Health Awards. With over 10 years research and clinical experience, she has published multiple articles, and delivered keynotes, workshops, and training focused on feeding disorders across the lifespan. Amy is trained in a range of modalities appropriate to working with feeding disorders, including cross-disciplinary approaches and has been providing supervision and case consultation in this area for over 5 years.

Consultation Modality: ARFID. Consultations will focus on increasing participants confidence and skills for working with individuals across the lifespan presenting with ARFID and other feeding challenges. Consultees will be exposed to a range of emerging treatment approaches for working with these populations and will be supported to utilise a formulation driven approach to determining how best to support those in their care. Participants will be supported to consider how to best establish appropriate team care arrangements given the multifactorial nature of ARFID presentations and will engage in case discussion and reflective practice. Ideally consultation groups will be comprised of practitioners from varying disciplines to assist in enhancing the capacity to apply multiple lenses to understanding individual cases. Groups may be age specific (i.e., child and family; older adolescent and adult) or mixed depending on participant interest.

Terrill is a dietitian with over 25 years experience working with people around their relationships with food, body and eating. Her work has included both public and private eating disorder services in Melbourne, across inpatient, day program and community treatments and with both adults and adolescents. Currently she is working in private practice and consultancy and in the provision of clinical supervision for dietitians, emphasising motivational interviewing and cognitive behavioral skills enhancement and from a weight neutral framework.

Consultation Modality: Consultation will encompass all aspects of dietetic work across eating disorder diagnoses and settings for treatment. This can include how nutritional therapy fits with various evidence based modalities such as FBT and CBT-E, scope of practice, dietetic boundaries and self care. A reflective but structured approach will be used with 2 participants each time being asked to bring a case or situation for all to discuss. Terrill is trained in motivational interviewing for supervision and has been running group supervision for some years so is comfortable working in this setting and supports practice standards for supervision for dietitians that are available on the DAA website.

Watch this short Q&A session with dietitian Terrill Bruere APD who talks about what to expect if you join her online consultation group:

Michelle Roberton is an Accredited Practising Dietitian and  has over 30 years experience as a dietitian working in mental health and eating disorders. She has worked in a wide variety of care setting including eating disorder specific services and private practice.

Michelle is currently the Manager of the Victorian Centre of Excellence in Eating Disorders which she has been associated with for the last 14 years as a senior clinician providing clinical consultation, professional development and service development support for Victorian health professionals working with people experiencing eating disorders.

Consultation Modality: Dietetic. Consultation will focus on the role of the dietitian working with people experiencing eating disorders, in particular in community settings. This includes care team planning and functioning; professional responsibilities, boundaries and self-care needs.

Dietetic consultation and care to complement and support evidence-based mental health interventions (eg FBT or CBT-E). Consultation will take a case based approach, for each session 2 participants will be requested/nominated to present a case or situation for the group to discuss and reflect on.

Michelle has extensive experience in provision of single practitioner and group case consultation for all professions involved in eating disorders care and management.

Dr Annaleise Robertson is an experienced clinical psychologist who specialises in systemic and psychodynamic frameworks for working with young people, their families, and the clinicians/teams that support them. Annaleise typically provides family therapy for eating disorders, including FBT and Family Therapy for Anorexia Nervosa (FT-AN) as done by Ivan Eisler and the Maudsley team. This approach, combined with applying systemic or psychodynamic frameworks, are useful additions for therapists who are new to or familiar with FBT, or for complex cases which feel stuck due to other individual or systemic issues. Annaleise prioritises formulation driven therapy and strives to help clinicians develop treatment plans which balance best research evidence, therapist experience and patient preference. Annaleise has worked in a full-time clinical role at The Children’s Hospital at Westmead since 2012, with extensive experience in both inpatient, outpatient and group therapy. She spent the past two years (2019-2021) living in London to undertake further study in these approaches at the Tavistock and Portman Institute and to work at the Maudsley Centre for Child and Adolescent Eating Disorders. Annaleise has provided regular training, consultation, supervision and workshops in eating disorders since 2013, including for the National Eating Disorders Collaboration (NEDC), The University of Sydney and has also developed a brief DBT-based family therapy adjunct.

Consultation Modality: 

1. Family therapy for eating disorders (FT-AN) as a useful addition for clinicians new to or already using FBT (child and adolescent cases)
2. Systemic and psychodynamic frameworks to explore current cases which can apply to other modalities (e.g. FBT, CBT-E etc.). This framework encourages reflection on personal and systemic influences relating to the clinical material, as well as focusing on the therapeutic or working alliance.

The specific needs of each group can be determined once we commence, but generally the best learning opportunities come from having one person present a case which we can then explore collaboratively by developing the formulation and applying systemic and/or psychodynamic frameworks as part of evidence informed treatment. The aim is to be open to new ways of thinking about cases using a variation of the ‘weaving thoughts’ method. We can also make time for skills or education as requested. I have been described as having a thoughtful, respectful and approachable style.

Availability: Day/time: Mondays. Consultation frequency is flexible although I generally find regular supervision works best on a fortnightly or monthly basis. 

Watch this short Q&A session with Dr Annaleise Robertson who talks about what to expect if you join her online consultation group:

Andrew Wallis has been booked out. We will let you know when he is open to take bookings for his second group consultations.

Dr Andrew Wallis is a Clinical Social Worker and Family Therapist. He has been working with adolescents and their families for more than 25 years. In 2003 with colleagues at The Children’s Hospital, Westmead, he established the first Family-Based Treatment program in Australia, and Multiple Family therapy for Anorexia Nervosa in 2014. He has been providing training, consultation and supervision in Australia and New Zealand for more the last 15 years, helping to support public and private services to implement family therapy approaches to adolescent problems. Andrew has also been involved in family therapy research with more than 25 per reviewed papers and book chapters including his PhD research on the impact of Family Based Therapy on family relationships during treatment. He is currently Co-lead of the Eating Disorder Service at Sydney Children’s Hospital Network – a tertiary service in Sydney, Australia.

Consultation Modalities:

Consultation Modality: Clinical Supervision Skills for Mental Health Clinicians – This consultation group will support new and experienced supervisors with a reflective practice opportunity to discuss experiences, develop good structures and processes for supervises, as well as troubling shoot current issues they may be experiencing with an experienced supervisor.

Clinical Supervision for Mental Health Professionals – This consultation is suitable for beginning supervisors and experienced supervisors. Discussions will aim to enhance current practice and support reflection, development of good structures and problem solving of current dilemmas. The agenda will be flexible to the consultants needs.

Joan Thompson is an Australian psychoanalyst who is currently working in London at the Margaret Street Practice. She qualified as a psychoanalytic psychotherapist (adult) with the British Psychoanalytic Federation in 2009 and a psychoanalyst with the British Psychoanalytic Association in July 2011.

Consultation Modality: I am a psychoanalyist and psychoanalytic psychotherapist, with a special interest and experience treating patients with bulimia and other eating disorders, and supervising clinicians treating patients with eating disorders. I am very keen to bring my psychoanalytic experience to bear upon treating eating disorders and supervise eating disorder clinicians working with different models to:

• Explore their cases from a psychoanalytical & psychodynamic perspective.
• Incorporate analytical ways of thinking into their practice.
• Extend analytic ways of thinking and interpreting complex problems of eating disorders which may differ from the models and manuals they are used to.

Anthea Fursland has practiced as a clinical psychologist for 40 years, in the UK, US and Australia. Over the past 15 years she has consulted with clinicians all over Australia. Anthea uses various treatments in her practice, mostly CBT-E (trained by Fairburn), and also SSCM (trained by its creator, Gini McIntosh).

Consultation Modality: Enhanced Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT-E) and Specialist Supportive Clinical Management (SSCM): I am flexible with timing and frequency of consultations. I believe that good, regular consultation improves clinician confidence and competence, thus resulting in better outcomes for our patients. I find that what works best is people presenting a case, which not only raises issues pertaining to that case, but is helpful to others in the group. Also useful is going over a particular strategy (e.g., the formulation in CBT-E), using discussion, illustration, examples and role play.