Why Align?
What Sets Us Apart
At Align our goal is to create the first adolescent residential eating disorder treatment program that not only includes parents but partners with them. As FBT is the only evidence based treatment model for Adolescents with Anorexia, how could we leave caregivers out?
Challenging your child’s eating disorder is extremely stressful. Supporting and teaching you while your child is in a safe, structured and skill based environment will allow you to come up for air, enhance learning and increase the likelihood that you can effectively apply the skills when your child returns home.
By disrupting the current residential treatment model and authentically implementing family-based therapy we aim to improve treatment success rates by making lower levels of care more effective and reduce relapse rates. We want residential treatment to be an effective first step in your child’s recovery- not a punishment or something that makes caregivers feel left out, inadequate or blamed.
For Patients at the residential level of care, their Eating Disorder is loud, controlling and relentless. As they are in no place to make their own treatment decisions we shift the focus out of snack making and cooking classes and rather work on building authentic reasons to recover and skills to battle urges and co-occurring disorders like Anxiety. We create opportunities for your child to expand their sense of self and self-efficacy through volunteer opportunities and for patients that are Athletes we offer a full back to Sport Curriculum.
We created Align because something needed to change at the residential level of care. Clinicians and Caregivers working together is the first step to improving outcomes and at Align we not only believe in parents we also believe full recovery is possible.
Our Model: Family-Based Treatment
Family Based Therapy (FBT) or sometimes referred to as Maudsley Family Therapy, is an evidence-based approach to the treatment of anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa whose efficacy has been supported by empirical research. Based on a study that highlighted the benefits of family therapy over individual therapy in the treatment of anorexia nervosa, Chris Dare and his colleagues at the Maudsley Hospital in London directly challenged the idea that parents were a part of the problem and should be left out of treatment. Rather, FBT not only eliminates blame on the parent but the aim is to empower parents to directly help their child recover.
At Align we bring FBT to a residential level of care and partner clinicians and caregivers in the battle against Eating Disorders. We create a safe, validating, skill based environment to help your child find the motivation and will to start their journey towards recovery while at the SAME time providing parents with the psychoeducation, support, skills and strategies to more effectively challenge the eating disorder when a child returns home.
Parent Groups
ATC was developed with the mission to provide superior support, psychoeducation and skills to parents and family members. We have over 8 hours a week of parent and family groups ranging from Parent Process Group, FBT 101, Parent Nutrition/Cooking Class to Sibling Group.
Animated Video Series Curriculum
It is essential that your teens learn evidence based coping skills to reduce their reliance on the Eating disorder to regulate their distress. However, due to malnutrition, willingness and perhaps their developmental stage, it can often be challenging teaching teens these skills effectively.
At Align we use animated videos to teach you and your children coping skills to not only help them manage their emotions but also navigate all things adolescent/teen such as social media, peers and getting along with their parents. Our videos use humor and authenticity to engage with our patients which allows them to better grasp and apply the concepts. We will also show caregivers these videos and follow up activities so you can feel more connected to what your teen is learning while also applying the skills yourself.
Athletes and Return to Sport/Movement Curriculum
At Align we know first hand the benefits of children participating in sports and with PE and youth athletics, learning how to safely move your body is essential. Participating in sports and movement can be helpful for mental health, sleep, self-esteem, self-efficacy AND a great reason to recover. We also know due to exercise often being a large part of the eating disorder it’s a slippery slope that needs to be done safely and methodically. Our clinical Director Sarah Archer, was part of the team at UCSD who helped develop the curriculum and plan for adolescents and teens to return to sport and has successfully helped athletes and their families ranging from highschool, collegiate and elite levels return to their sport.
At Align we are the only residential program in San Diego that has genuine expertise in helping patients AND caregivers carve the path for return to sport and movement.