Let's F.E.A.S.T.

by Erica Husain, UK 1.   How d id you find your path to parent- advocacy  Without conscious effort !   Grateful that anyone was o ut there to talk to, I joined the ATDT  forum – not without a certain amount of trepidatio n and concern over apparent  need   for a pseudonym .   “ H iding  out ”  i n public ,   from anyone and everyone I knew ,   was a  leap of faith , b ut p eople  here  helped me .  T hey didn’t  want my money, they didn’t require  me to sign up or own up to anything much more than a name and an email a dd ress, and they offered  freely   their  experience  and   their confidence  that  I could do what they had  already done , and  they offered  their cheer leading  while I navigated the worst  thing that had ever happened to  my family .  The worst no t because  it was the first  time that  a life had been  threat ened  in it  but because it was the first  time that there wasn’t  a safety  net of clear professional  understanding and  prognosis,  the first

Another $10,000 Matching Donation!!! Double your donation's impact, NOW! - Families Empowered and Supporting Treatment of Eating Disorders I am pleased to announce a new, incredibly generous $10,000 anonymous matching pledge! So, if you were considering donating to F.E.A.S.T. during this fund drive, now is a great opportunity to double the impact of your gift. There are two kinds of donations that will trigger this match: 1.  One-time donations of $100 and up  (including $10/mo payment plan), and 2.  Annual recurring pledges of $50 and up . These will trigger a  double match ! (i.e. $50/yr =$100 match, $100/yr = $200 match) Quick Links: Visit our  Fund Drive Home Page  for more information Fund Drive Slideshow Donate by Credit Card or Check Donate with Paypal

1.   How did you find your path to parent-advocacy?    When our daughter was diagnosed in 2011 with anorexia nervosa, I was shocked to my core and confounded by how much my perception of AN differed from the reality. We received excellent evidence based treatment which supported our critical role in our daughters treatment. Nevertheless, I was extremely challenged, and a bit disappointed, by the different way we were treated by our social networks and community, and my employer, in terms of support at this difficult time. Also watching my daughter struggle with shame at being thought vain and selfish for developing this disorder also made me incensed at how the focus on the thin culture as a cause of this disorder impeded recovery for sufferers. My professional life has involved a lot of advocacy for change in the provision of health care, and for disempowered clinician groups within the health community, so in many ways becoming involved in advocacy for EDs was a natura

I hate fundraising. But I hate ED more. When a group of parents around the world started the first internatonal group OF and SUPPORTING parents of ED patients we didn’t just want to copy what others were doing. We wanted to change the landscape of what families find and how they respond to these life-draining and life-threatening disorders. We believed two things were essential: Focus on what parents can DO. Follow the science. We knew we wanted to be a unique voice and that we might stir controversy. For that, we needed financial independence. You see, most advocacy is funded by sponsorships by those selling services to families. This is not to say that providers would tell us what to do, or that what they do was wrong, but an acknowledgement that financial independence would leave us free to focus on the message and not keeping sponsors happy. So, being financially independent means F.E.A.S.T. depends on the very people we represent: families. We depend on co

FEAST is 5 Years Strong!!  In 2004 a group of parents started an online community to support each other while they re-fed their children suffering from eating disorders.  In 2007, Around The Dinner Table (ATDT) became a free-standing forum with 153 members.  In 2009 F.E.A.S.T. received official non-profit status, with 651 members and became the permanent home for ATDT which had 711 members. Five years later, in 2014 F.E.A.S.T. has 4,489 members and ATDT has 6,078 members.   F.E.A.S.T. has accomplished much over the last 5 years including the following: Three FEAST caregiver conferences in the US  International task forces efforts to collaborate on Carer’s Conferences in the UK and AUS Invitations to represent the perspective of caregiver’s at professional conferences & workshops, US congressional briefings, media interviews, ED journal articles  Growth and reach of the ATDT forum – 100 new members and over 500,000 page views per month  Family Guide Distribution to ad