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When School Can Wait: Empowering Families and Providers Through Difficult Treatment Recommendations

Lorrie Balding, LCSW
Judy Krasna
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Information

Date & Time

Description

This presentation offers a vital dual perspective from both a clinical provider and a caregiver advocate to navigate the complex decision of keeping a student in eating disorder treatment while postponing a return to school. The session addresses the tension between normative academic milestones and urgent medical needs, exploring critical indicators like medical instability, cognitive deficits from malnutrition, and the lack of structure for symptom management in school or college environments. Through the lived experience lens of a caregiver, the presentation validates the profound shock, isolation, and parental guilt that families experience when academic timelines must be paused. Providers will gain practical scripts and communication strategies to help parents firmly "hold the line" with their child, manage disappointment, and navigate external conversations.

Learning Objectives

Participants will be able to:

  • Explain why the client’s clinical presentations necessitates postponing school, highlighting the caregiver’s role and perspective.

  • Express clinical concerns that intersect with the client and caregiver’s priorities, values, and long-term academic goals.

  • Describe common reasons that clients and caregivers choose to return to school, and how providers can support their decisions.

Educational Goal

Providers will acquire techniques to support the effective delivery of difficult recommendations around adolescents and young adults remaining in eating disorder treatment and postponing a return to school. Providers will be more empathetic to caregivers' experiences of decision-making in the context of this common clinical scenario.

Target Audience

  • Addiction Professional
  • Counselor
  • Dietitian
  • Marriage & Family Therapist
  • Nurse
  • Nutritionist
  • Physician
  • Psychologist
  • Social Worker

Presenters

Lorrie Balding, LCSW
Lorrie is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and leader with extensive experience treating complex eating disorders and co-occurring conditions. Lorrie has been part of the Monte Nido team since 2016. Before transitioning into the Director of Family Services role, Lorrie was the Clinical Director at Monte Nido Miami for seven years where she managed operations, compliance, and a multidisciplinary staff across residential and day treatment facilities. Her background highlights a deep expertise in clinical supervision, crisis management, and family therapy.

Lorrie currently oversees the nationwide integrity of family-focused therapy. She provides clinical leadership through nationwide case consultations, multi-site group supervision, and virtual clinical rounds. Additionally, Lorrie leads quarterly clinical trainings on family therapy and hosts monthly educational webinars for caregivers. Collaborating with executive clinical leadership, she remains dedicated to advancing high-quality, person-centered care across all organization programs.

When not working, Lorrie deeply enjoys time with her husband and two sons, reading, gardening, and floating in her pool.
Judy Krasna
Judy Krasna is the Executive Director of F.E.A.S.T. (Families Empowered and Supporting Treatment for Eating Disorders). She is a writer and an eating disorder advocate both in Israel, where she lives, and globally. Judy is an active “expert by experience” volunteer in the Academy for Eating Disorders and has been working for over a decade to improve eating disorder treatment and to bridge the research-practice gap.

After volunteering for F.E.A.S.T. in multiple capacities, Judy became the organization’s Executive Director in February 2021.

Judy is deeply committed to helping and supporting families of people with eating disorders and to promoting awareness about suicidality in eating disorders, especially after her daughter Gavriella took her own life in 2020 after a prolonged battle with anorexia nervosa. She is also passionate about working with providers to ensure that parents receive the psychoeducation, skills, and tools that they need to support their loved one’s eating disorder recovery.

Judy can be reached at judy@feast-ed.org.

Financially Sponsored By

  • Monte Nido