Care We Offer
Our Programs
Partial Hospitalization Program (PHP)
Our PHP provides clients the opportunity to receive intensive day treatment while remaining in familiar surroundings at home and with family. PHP is a period of treatment between acute hospitalization and/or residential treatment and lower levels of care, such as an Intensive Outpatient Program (IOP) or outpatient care.
The program consists of six and a half hours of treatment Monday through Thursday from 11:30 am – 6:00 pm, and 11:30am – 5:00pm Fridays.
PHP Program Components:
- Adolescent and transitional age youth only
- Individualized assessments and treatment plans
- Individual and family therapy
- 1-2 structured meals and 1 snack per day
- Nutrition counseling
- Mealtime support and processing
- Medical monitoring
- Weekly psychiatric check-in
- Structured group therapy
- Expressive therapies including yoga, art and music
- Exposure therapy (restaurant outings, challenge foods)
- Psycho-education groups (healthy body and nutrition education)
- Process—oriented groups (emotional processing, identity exploration, and body image)
- Coordination of care with families/caregivers and outside treatment providers
- Detailed and thorough discharge planning for relapse prevention
Intensive Outpatient Program (IOP)
Our IOP is designed to meet the needs of clients who require more physical, emotional and nutritional support than the outpatient setting provides. The program also provides step-down care from Partial Hospitalization Programs or Residential Treatment.
The hours of our IOP (4 hours a day, 5 days a week) allow for more intensive treatment while maintaining active participation in school and other daily activities.
Outpatient
Through our affiliated outpatient arm, The Community Health Collaborative, located in the same building as our Los Altos program, we offer specialized medical, psychiatric, therapy (individual and family based therapy), and nutritional services for eating disorder clients. We recognize that not everyone is a candidate for our PHP and IOP programs so please feel free to call us for referrals to outpatient providers within, or apart from, The Community Health Collaborative.
Treatment Team Structure
Our multidisciplinary team includes Therapists, Registered Dietitians, Medical providers, and Psychiatric Providers. Each team member has extensive experience working with adolescent eating disorders, and is committed to getting to know each client and family system to develop an individualized treatment plan that best meets their needs.
Therapists
Each client and their family is assigned a therapist who will work with them from admit to discharge. Each therapist oversees treatment care coordination, which includes developing treatment plans, communicating with insurers to receive authorization for treatment, and coordination with HTP providers and off-site team members. Therapists provide therapy to each client and their families. Therapy sessions include: individual therapy, caregiver-only sessions, and family sessions. It is strongly recommended that all caregivers involved attend weekly sessions when possible. Our therapists also lead groups throughout the week, which provides each client with access to each therapist’s unique set of skills and relational style.
Registered Dietitians
Our Registered Dietitians (RDs) oversee all things food related at the program. From admit to discharge, our RD’s are continuously assessing each client’s nutritional intake to assure their nutritional needs are met. Our RDs supervise every meal and snack in program, and provide parents with individualized feedback on the food brought into program each day. RD’s have weekly appointments with caregivers and clients to provide ongoing nutritional guidance. They also lead our nutritional experiential (cooking group) and nutrition education on a weekly basis.
Medical and Psychiatric Specialists
We have experienced over time that onsite Medical and Psychiatric eating disorder specialists are essential for this level of care. The immediate proximity and availability of these providers helps constitute a comprehensive treatment team and ensures high safety standards. Our medical and psychiatric providers consist of Medical Doctors (M.D.), Psychiatrists (M.D.) Registered Nurse Practitioners (NP), and medical assistants (MA). Our medical and psychiatric team works to assure each client is medically and psychiatrically understood, safe, and effectively served. Our medical providers also lead a weekly group, “Healthy Body” on an ongoing basis.
Cross-Team Communication and Coordination
We understand that effective communication among HTP’s multidisciplinary team, outpatient treatment providers and family caregivers is critical to effective care. HTP’s team has daily discussions regarding each client and their treatment progression. The team will proactively communicate treatment issues with both family caregivers and outpatient providers when they arise in order to coordinate care.
A Day in the Program
At The Healthy Teen Project, we pride ourselves on creating a welcoming and recovery-oriented milieu that accepts individuals from all diverse backgrounds. Prospective clients can expect to share a milieu with a group of 8-12 peers with ages often evenly spread between 12 and 20 – although every so often the age range may skew higher or lower. Often one or more other clients will begin treatment at the same time as each other, however, there will be other clients further along in their treatment, which can often lend inspiration and hope into the recovery process. While every client will be at different stages in recovery, our hope is that all clients feel respected and supported along their unique recovery paths.
The program day consists of two to four psychoeducational, therapeutic, or experiential groups throughout the day, depending on the level of care you are participating in. In between groups, we have supported meals and snacks throughout the day, including lunch, afternoon snack, and dinner. We start and end every day with a check-in and check-out which allows clients additional opportunities to express their emotions, thoughts, and urges, and seek support from staff. It also provides more accountability by encouraging clients to access and reflect upon their coping strategies throughout the day. Throughout the week, each client will meet individually with their treatment team. Clients will see all four providers at least once and sometimes twice each week. Additionally, family therapy and nutrition appointments occur every week. Parents will also have the opportunity to come together for parent group twice a month.
Therapy is individualized to meet the idiographic needs of the clients and takes a holistic perspective. Holistic care means that we treat the whole person: mind, body, and spirit, and try to address all of the treatment concerns concurrently. For instance, your sessions might focus on developing skills to manage anxiety symptoms and explore how that pertains to eating disorder behaviors. Therapists work with clients collaboratively to develop the treatment goals and design a treatment plan that considers the strengths of each client.
All of the HTP’s therapists come with years of experience working in the eating disorder field and are Certified Eating Disorder Specialists (CEDS) by the International Association of Eating Disorder Professionals (IAEDP) or working towards obtaining their credentialing. Our therapists have also been trained in Family Based Treatment (FBT).
Family Therapy
Family therapy and family support is a core-component of the treatment at HTP. We strongly believe that the recovery process is augmented with the support of family members and that family intervention is essential for long-lasting change and relapse prevention. Family therapy takes place once weekly with your assigned family therapist. Typically, family sessions will be based on Family Based Treatment (FBT), a manualized treatment approach that emphasizes parental involvement and empowerment to aid in their adolescent’s recovery.
Not all families are appropriate for FBT, thus the approach to family therapy is evaluated at the assessment stage in the treatment process and alternative approaches may be recommended.
For more details, please refer to the Family-Based Treatment section