Avalon Hills Family Week
Wednesday, August 19th, 2009
Avalon Hills hosts a family retreat at different times during the year that includes nearly all the families of our current patients. Although our last retreat was a few months ago I wanted to talk about it and how successful it was.
Our professional staff learned immensely from the clients and their families and the evaluations and feedback we received indicated that it was a highly meaningful experience for all who attended. The week-long events included many classes on topics such as family dynamics, communication skills, and medical complications of eating disorders, intuitive eating, & how to facilitate funding for treatment. Many raved about the opening presentation by Doris Smeltzer, a mom who lost her 19 year old daughter to bulimia nervosa. Her story is tragic, moving, eye opening, and life altering to all who allow themselves to feel the weight of her message-eating disorders are deadly, our culture needs a wake up call to realize this, & advocacy/awareness are required on every level from individual families to public policy to prevent additional deaths. Additionally, the founder of Avalon Hills, Benita Quakenbush-Roberts, presented pieces of her own long-term recovery story and took questions from the patients and their families. The week was rounded out by multi-family work characterized by the patients and families truly getting honest with each other in an effort to heal and move forward as a cohesive unit against the eating disorder. Those professional staff that facilitated the sessions were ever amazed by the strength, grace, and hope presented in the openness of ”our” patients and their families. Recognizing the impact of the family retreat, we are planning on doing a retreat such as this at least twice per year. For current families we will keep you posted as the next date draws near.
If you are interested in additional info on the advocacy efforts of Doris Smeltzer, please visit the following site: http://www.andreasvoice.org/
If you have questions surrounding the family retreat you can contact Carrie Bostrom at (435) 755-0434 or carrie@avalonhills.org.
