Colleen Alford, a senior social worker, family therapist, and PhD candidate & Gemma Van Kampen, a passionate advocate for neuro-affirming eating disorders care present a one day workshop on Supporting Autistic Children and Adolescents Experiencing Eating Disorders: Principles for Inpatient And Outpatient Care. | Zoom, Friday 31 October 2025 9AM to 3PM AEDT
Location: Via Zoom, Link to be provided prior to the event.
Date: Friday 31 October 2025
Pricing: $396 (incl. GST & TryBooking Processing Fee)
About the Training:
In this online workshop Gemma and Colleen will draw on their own experiences, recent research, and clinical practice innovations to outline foundational care principles and autism accommodations that create support and safety for autistic young people. The second half of the workshop will focus specifically on ways to adapt eating disorders therapy to better meet the needs of autistic young people and their families.
Topics covered will include:
- The interplay between autism and eating disorders
- Navigating care and systems following an autism diagnosis
- Creating a safe and supportive eating disorders treatment context
- Helpful autism accommodations
- Challenging neuro-normative ideals
- Supporting a young person to understand their autistic identity
- Support for parents
- The role of agency
- Useful therapy adaptations
Training prerequisites:
It is helpful for participants to have a working knowledge of eating disorders and standard eating disorder treatments.
About the Presenters:
Colleen Alford (she/her) is a senior social worker, family therapist, and PhD candidate. Colleen works at Sydney Childrens’ Hospitals Network Eating Disorders Service and has led research and clinical practice improvements in the area of autism and eating over the last ten years. Colleen is a PhD candidate at the University of Technology Sydney, and the focus of her PhD research is ‘Adapting traditional child and adolescent eating disorders treatment for autistic young people and their families.
Gemma van Kampen (she/her) is a passionate advocate for neuro-affirming eating disorders care. Gemma is an autistic ADHDer with lived experience of an eating disorder. Gemma has co-designed this workshop and is looking forward to integrating her experiences with ideas about how to improve eating disorders treatment.