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Greece, N.Y. —
In 2009, Harmony Place, an adolescent treatment center for children battling chronic and severe eating disorders, opened its doors in Greece. The facility, which offers adolescents 24/7 care, is the only free-standing residential program in the state designed exclusively to help children ages 12 to 18 conquer their disorder.
The program is innovative and progressive, housing every need for a patient who may feel like they’re at the end of the road, said Helena Boersma, program director. The design of the program is critical — it is a family-based, individualized system where patients have a staff of nurses, therapists, psychologists, cooks and residential counselors all under one roof who provide constant supervision of meals and care 24 hours a day.
Boersma sat down with the Greece Post to talk more about the program.
How did Harmony Place get started?
It started with the Department of Health putting together something called the Comprehensive Care Centers for Eating Disorders, which we became a part of in conjunction with Golisano Children’s Hospital and Unity Health System. The three of us were all in it together representing Western New York. What happened was that Unity, because it was a day treatment program, could only take care of the kids during the day, and so what we did was offer a wrap-around service. Kids who didn’t live in the area, but needed this level of care, would have a place to stay. We transported them, helped with continuity of care, we fed them, worked with their parents, and we basically spent about three years learning what the families really needed out of treatment and then we opened up this phase, which is phase two.
How do you differ from Golisano Children’s Hospital and Unity Health?
Golisano is an in-patient, so they go there to get medically stable. If something is wrong medically (low heart rates, low body temperatures, extremely malnourished) they will go there to get medically stabilized. The partial hospitalization program for eating disorders at Unity Health is now closed, but there is a new place that has opened up that is called the Healing Connection, and the person who oversaw the Unity program now owns and operates the Healing Connection. And so the three of us now — Golisano, the Healing Connection and Harmony Place — we’re like a big triangle, because the kids might go in-patient to get medically stabilized, but depending on where they are with their illness they will step down to a day treatment (Healing Connection) or 24/7 residential treatment (Harmony Place). The three of us are able to offer any individual all these different levels of care. We all know each other so well.
In 2009, Harmony Place, an adolescent treatment center for children battling chronic and severe eating disorders, opened its doors in Greece. The facility, which offers adolescents 24/7 care, is the only free-standing residential program in the state designed exclusively to help children ages 12 to 18 conquer their disorder.
The program is innovative and progressive, housing every need for a patient who may feel like they’re at the end of the road, said Helena Boersma, program director. The design of the program is critical — it is a family-based, individualized system where patients have a staff of nurses, therapists, psychologists, cooks and residential counselors all under one roof who provide constant supervision of meals and care 24 hours a day.
Boersma sat down with the Greece Post to talk more about the program.
How did Harmony Place get started?
It started with the Department of Health putting together something called the Comprehensive Care Centers for Eating Disorders, which we became a part of in conjunction with Golisano Children’s Hospital and Unity Health System. The three of us were all in it together representing Western New York. What happened was that Unity, because it was a day treatment program, could only take care of the kids during the day, and so what we did was offer a wrap-around service. Kids who didn’t live in the area, but needed this level of care, would have a place to stay. We transported them, helped with continuity of care, we fed them, worked with their parents, and we basically spent about three years learning what the families really needed out of treatment and then we opened up this phase, which is phase two.
How do you differ from Golisano Children’s Hospital and Unity Health?
Golisano is an in-patient, so they go there to get medically stable. If something is wrong medically (low heart rates, low body temperatures, extremely malnourished) they will go there to get medically stabilized. The partial hospitalization program for eating disorders at Unity Health is now closed, but there is a new place that has opened up that is called the Healing Connection, and the person who oversaw the Unity program now owns and operates the Healing Connection. And so the three of us now — Golisano, the Healing Connection and Harmony Place — we’re like a big triangle, because the kids might go in-patient to get medically stabilized, but depending on where they are with their illness they will step down to a day treatment (Healing Connection) or 24/7 residential treatment (Harmony Place). The three of us are able to offer any individual all these different levels of care. We all know each other so well.
Do patients typically start at the hospital and work their way to day/residential treatment, or is it vise versa? Are patients typically proactive?
Generally speaking with eating disorders, you start with your doctor and then you might try outpatient services, and if you’re not doing well with outpatient, sometimes you can jump straight to a day treatment level which will interrupt your symptoms during the day. If you’re unable to manage that then you might have to get into the hospital to get medically stabilized, and then you can either try a day treatment, or come here. Our admission criteria expects that the individual has failed a couple of times in other treatment levels before coming here, it’s kind of like the end of the road. Insurance is real limiting, they want to know that you’ve tried every other level of care first before you end up coming here. Eating disorders are notorious for being expensive. ... Residential programs can cost as much as $30,000 a month.
How are the parents involved?
They’re heavily involved and they have to be. Throughout the week the therapist will have at least one parent session, one family session and at least one to two individual sessions with the child. On Friday nights we have a multi-family group with all families and kids together. On Saturdays the parents are here for an entire day. They work with the nurse and the dietitian and learn to prepare meal plans. They plate and serve the meals and learn how to manage symptoms at the dinner table. For the most part, when kids have eating disorders it splits their families, big time. A lot of times the parents feel like the nutritionist, the security guard, the therapist and the psychiatrist, and it feels overwhelming. We try to help them build back up.
How big of a problem are eating disorders in New York State?
The number of cases nationwide is skyrocketing. I think what’s happening in our society is a huge trickle-down effect over the generations. There are so many moms and dads saying they want to lose weight and go on a diet. Now they’re learning that at a young age. And in schools they learn what an eating disorder is, what a calorie is, how to lose weight ... and so for kids who are genetically vulnerable and sensitive to making these poor decisions, they latch on to that. That’s only for the kids who are vulnerable and you never know who those kids are. ... We try to do a lot to educate the area, as far as going out into schools, bringing speakers to town and educating the medical staff to help them understand more about eating disorders. We know that eating disorders have the highest mortality rate of any other mental health illness.
The design of your treatment program is based off an approach called the Maudsley Approach. What is this approach, and why do you follow this model?
The Maudsley Approach is based on the Maudsley hospital in England. The hospital was treating individuals with eating disorders and they ended up discovering that they didn’t have to coerce, they weren’t strapping anyone down to beds or tube feeding. They were trying to figure out why they were able to have success rates. They formalized it and called it a family-based therapy approach that is Maudsley informed. It’s now meant to be for families who want to help their children through the recovery process, which for adolescents is the best. There are three phases, and phase one says that parents are 100 percent responsible for re-feeding. So you take control of it, instead of the disorder taking over the household.
How do resources for eating disorders here in New York differ from other states in the country? Is New York ahead or behind the curve?
We’re the only residential program in the state of New York, and we’re the only one in the country that only works with adolescents. There are two programs like this in the country, one in New York and one in California. But they (the treatment center in California) do a whole bunch, we’re the only one in the country that does this type of specialized eating disorders program with just this age group. There are now three outpatient day treatment programs in the state and four different hospitals that can care for children. We have a fair amount of resources here that can help.
What is your background?
I have spent close to 20 years working in health and fitness. I started out as an exercise physiologist working with adults and children on their weight management, and ended up getting a degree as a therapist to help both adults and children figure out what weight loss was, and what weight gain meant. Then I joined the Villa about five years ago and started their eating disorder programs.
