November Mental and Behavioral Health Roundup

Hope and Healing: Seattle Children’s Offers Specialized Outpatient Eating Disorder Recovery Program

Seattle Children’s Outpatient Eating Disorders Recovery Program diagnoses and treats children and teens with anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa and other eating disorders. We provide medical, nutrition and mental health care in several formats to meet patient and family needs.

This program currently has immediate openings for children and teens aged 7 through 17 needing mental health care support for eating disorders. Patients who are 18 years old and are still attending school or living with their caregivers are often eligible.

The Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine Eating Disorders Outpatient Clinic provides short-term clinic-based therapy. If we are not able to serve the patient within our program, we will provide patients with resources in the community with providers and programs experienced with treating eating disorders.

For more information: Visit the Outpatient Eating Disorders Recovery Program refer a patient page to learn more.

Openings Available for Seattle Children’s Obsessive Compulsive Disorder Intensive Outpatient Treatment Program

Our Obsessive Compulsive Disorder Intensive Outpatient Program helps children and teens aged 11 to 18 (or seniors in high school) diagnosed with OCD who have not been able to make progress in regular outpatient treatment and who have a parent or guardian able to attend each session (three hours a day, four days a week) for the entire program. The treatment approach is cognitive behavior therapy for OCD, which emphasizes exposure and response prevention.

The program does have exclusionary criteria that should be reviewed prior to referral, including:

• Self-harm and/or active suicidal ideation with intent to self-harm within the last three months or a chronic history of self-harm without evidence of adequate coping skills needed to tolerate the extreme stress that exposure treatment is likely to produce
• Violence or threatening violence within the last three months
• Active disordered eating within the last three months (e.g., anorexia, avoidant restrictive eating disorder)
• Significant developmental delays or persistent deficits in social communication and social interaction that would result in the patient being unable to participate in the in-person group treatment without extensive support

For more information: Visit the Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine refer a patient page to learn more about this program and how to refer patients.