Changing Guard at F.E.A.S.T. HQ
Important News Flash!
There is a changing of the guard in the leadership at
F.E.A.S.T.
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| Leah Dean |
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| Lisa LaBorde |
After serving F.E.A.S.T. for many years, Leah Dean
(Executive Director) and Lisa La Borde (Outreach Director) will pass the
baton to a new team. Both Leah and Lisa
will continue to play roles for F.E.A.S.T. as valued and experienced Board
members, but both are able to take a well-earned breather from day to day
management after all their sterling efforts to date (see more below). They are owed a huge debt of gratitude by
everyone who has had any dealings with F.E.A.S.T., in whatever capacity, these
last few years. Thank you, to both of
you, for all that you have managed so competently, courageously and
courteously!
Leah and Lisa have been a perfect “double act”, and
Leah has also been generously offering her time, as support and safety net,
while a new duo step up to the plate together next month.
From November 1, Belinda Caldwell will
step into the Executive Director role as F.E.A.S.T begins this next transition,
and Erica Husain (as chair) will help to shape and carry out the
Outreach Director role to support the work of the Executive Director.
But
more on that will follow.
For those of you who would like to know more about
where we are now and how we have got here…
A Bit of History
It has been eight years since F.E.A.S.T. was founded
as response to the parlous state of treatment that was commonly found at that
time, and the added insult that parents and families were, by and large,
treated with suspicion and required to “disengage”.
F.E.A.S.T. emerged onto the eating disorders scene
with some challenging Position Statements, one of the most controversial
perhaps at the time that: “Parents Do Not Cause Eating Disorders”! Thankfully we have moved swiftly onward from
there, to the extent that some may even wonder as they arrive at F.E.A.S.T.’s
welcome mat today why that statement was ever a priority.
Foundations - a first Executive Director
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| Laura puzzling, with looking-glass cutlery |
For all of these beginnings, we have to thank Laura
(Collins) Lyster-Mensh; the parent of a child who felt the insult keenly as
her daughter was offered suboptimal treatment and her family assigned its only
role - to sit in the waiting room, fit to cut a cheque, and fetch and carry,
but to play no other active role in treatment.
The situation seemed to require more urgency to this particular parent,
so …
Laura took the initiative to gather information, her
dignity and the support of other parents and, from her kitchen table, founded
an organisation aimed at empowering all parents who found themselves in similar
circumstances. Empowered in
understanding; in having a voice; in having a role in treatment; in helping
each other and, importantly, in shaping the understanding and the development
of what was (and is) to come in eating disorder understanding and
treatment.
Early Days
Laura served as Executive Director of F.E.A.S.T. from
2009 until the end of 2012. In that
time, she oversaw the growth of the online peer-to-peer supporting forum - Around The Dinner Table; six Position Statements; the
establishment of a group of professional advisors and supporters; a recipe book; a “Magic Plate” drive; a F.E.A.S.T. award for parent advocacy; regional and other task forces
(including Australia, New Zealand, UK and Canada); two US based F.E.A.S.T.
conferences and one in the UK; collaborations with the AED to publish and
distribute first line medical advice; the first of the F.E.A.S.T. Family Guide series of booklets; management of countless
volunteers and media outlets behind the scenes; a series of taped interviews of families published on the website; the first F.E.A.S.T. blog; a campaign or two; a new website, the publication of various articles of interest, and a membership that rose from 0 to more than 2,000
individual members from 41 different countries over the period of her
tenure. In addition she has been a voice
on the phone, online, in person at various events across the globe - from Sydney
to Salzburg, from London to New York and Washington, and plenty of places in
between. She has given more than one keynote address; and she has guided and answered to several rotations
of Directors of the F.E.A.S.T. Board, who run the 501(c)3 not-for-profit
organisation that is F.E.A.S.T.. She was
also the recipient of the 2014 Meehan-Hartley Award for Public Service and/or Advocacy from the Academy
for Eating Disorders (AED).
Building on Foundations
By the end of 2012 Laura was, understandably, ready to
pass on the baton, and did so to the current Executive Director, Leah Dean
- architect by training, mother by vocation, eating disorder caregiver by
necessity, and the person most qualified (and fortunately also willing!) to
take responsibility for how F.E.A.S.T. might best fulfill its mission for the
coming years, starting January 2013.
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| Family Guides ready to ship... |
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| Into the frame... |
She has also overseen F.E.A.S.T.’s involvement in the
pioneering of genetic research into eating disorders. As the ANGI initiative, looking to find
genetic data to support the biological research that will inform understanding
and tailored treatments for the future, was joined by the AN25K challenge,
F.E.A.S.T. worked in international collaboration with the UK charity Beat,
Kings College London and the Center of Excellence for Eating Disorders at the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, to support the creation of Charlotte’s Helix, and allow the UK to contribute to this important
global and collaborative research initiative.
Charlotte was a F.E.A.S.T. family advocate - a board member, a friend to
many Around the Dinner Table and beyond, and it was in her name and in her
nation that this charitable endeavour was set up, with the direct support of
her “F.E.A.S.T. family”.
Increasing the Outreach
On the Outreach desk, Lisa LaBorde has managed the necessary
for F.E.A.S.T. joining two MOM marches on Washington, and planning a Lunch and
Learn, hosted by Leah, while there; strengthened social media engagement - becoming involved in
the Twitter-sphere, contributing to numerous Tweet chats and livestream webinars, and adding a F.E.A.S.T.
closed Facebook group as adjunct to the F.E.A.S.T. FB page and the Around the Dinner Table Online Forum.
She has been responsible for building new relationships with numerous
other advocacy organisations and adding to our band of professional advisers,
and created a “Five Questions” series of interviews on the “Let’sF.E.A.S.T.” blog
which has included multiple stakeholders.
Under Leah and Lisa’s leadership, membership numbers
have moved from 2,300 in January 2013 to more than 7,000 members today.
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| Lisa & Leah: poised, ready, willing, able, ICED 2013 |
Here and Now!
Families Empowered And Supporting Treatment of eating disorders,
is what F.E.A.S.T. stands for. I know
that there are many reading who will want to join me in thanking all those responsible
for raising F.E.A.S.T. Each has built on
the foundations that were given them, and we are eager to continue to do more. F.E.A.S.T. relies on its members and other
supporters for all of its resources – willing hands, specialist expertise, financial
- all are used in helping families become empowered as important stakeholders
in appropriate and successful eating disorder treatment wherever they may be. Please stay engaged, and keep in touch!
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