Children & Youth Collaborative Services (CYCS) – Intensive Eating Disorders Program

About the Program

Category: Health (Best in Category)

Year: 2016

In order to effectively treat children and youth suffering from severe eating disorders (EDO), Children and Youth Collaborative Services (CYCS) adapted Family Based Treatment, an evidenced based treatment provided in the home, with intensive case management and wrap-informed programs. Centralized Children's Intensive Case Management Services (CCICMS) is a county staff clinical unit that addressed the primary tasks of integrating medical services with mental health services and providing more intensive therapy in the home, if needed. Success First/Early Wrap (SF/EW), a contracted community based wrap-informed program addressed the task of ensuring the intensive structure needed to successfully treat eating disorders in the home. In the past two and half years, this program has provided services to 102 youth with severe EDO’s. Ten percent of these started the program while hospitalized and fed through a nasogastric tube to address medical consequences of the EDO. Ongoing collaboration with the medical team, including facilitating access to a nutritionist in the local community, is a cornerstone of this approach. Of those served, 60% appeared to be capable of managing any ongoing issues without the need of further mental health treatment. An additional eight percent improved, but needed additional mental health services to address the EDO after the program was finished.