"Eating disorder support"

My experience with Child & Youth Mental Health Service (CYMHS) following inpatient treatment at Box Hill for an eating disorder has been truly eye-opening. The stated aim of the team is to support family-based treatment, coordinate services and provide support for re-introduction to normal life in a client-focused service. Instead, in my opinion, it has been destructive, passive-aggressive, blaming, ill-informed, secretive and unwilling or unable to provide any actual support.

I feel there has been no coordination of services, but there have been constant reminders that they are the experts holding the 'gold standard' key. I believe practices and advice are counter to current eating disorder and mental health research.

In my opinion, they require that we turn up so that they can assess against unstated objectives but are unwilling to provide information on what this is, increasing the experience of being an object rather than a client.

Eating disorders are escalating in Melbourne right now, no doubt increasing workload, but, in my opinion, that is no excuse for the behaviour and lack of understanding I feel we are seeing and the enormous risk to patients that I believe it creates.