Veritas Collaborative, a specialty healthcare system for the treatment of eating disorders, today celebrates the three-year anniversary of its Child, Adolescent & Adult Clinic in Richmond, VA. The organization marks this milestone with the announcement of a new, six-month Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) Skills Group for adults with the diagnoses of eating disorders over the age of 18.
“One of our priorities at Veritas is to work within communities to fill gaps in service,” said Elisha Contner Wilkins, MS, LMFT, CEDS-S, Executive Director of the Richmond clinic. “As we’ve become integrated within the Richmond community, we noticed a need for adult patients to have additional support on their journey to recovery. That’s why we’re creating an additional resource to help patients enhance and generalize those key skills throughout all areas of their life.”
DBT is an evidence-based therapeutic modality that has proven effective for individuals with eating disorders and additional comorbid psychiatric concerns, including but not limited to anxiety and depression. The group is intended for patients who need skills development and additional support. It begins March 26 at 5 p.m., and interested individuals can join the group at any point during the six-month period. Patients are not required to have been treated by Veritas, but there are prerequisites for participation, including a level of care assessment.
As the region’s comprehensive, multidisciplinary eating disorder clinic treating all genders and offering higher levels of care, the new DBT Skills Group is only one of many ways the Richmond facility is meeting needs of Virginians. Within the past year, the organization added a medical director and family medicine physician to its staff of 32. It also added outpatient services, which includes individual and family therapy, individual dietetic services, psychiatric medication management and family medicine along with intensive outpatient and partial hospitalization services. The level of care assessment clinic in Richmond began in May 2018, and outpatient visits have doubled from December to January. Additionally, the organization collaborates with a variety of providers, hospital systems and community organizations to provide enhanced education and support around a health concern that affects an estimated 30 million people nationwide.
“Celebrating the 3-year anniversary of our Richmond clinic is more than a mile marker for us,” said Stacie McEntyre, LCSW, CEDS, founder, president and CEO of Veritas Collaborative. “We are making a real difference by offering hope and healing to those who have a devastating illness. Whether it’s a clinic, a hospital or a skills group, we are on a mission to drive the standard of care in eating disorder treatment, and we are committed to restore hope for a cure.”
Patients treated in Richmond have access to the full spectrum of Veritas Collaborative care. The Child, Adolescent, and Adult Clinic is located at 6627 West Broad Street, Suite 400 in Richmond. It services the greater Richmond area by providing multidisciplinary care for children, adolescents, and adults over 10 years of age impacted by eating disorderillnesses in a gender-diverse and inclusive environment. The clinic provides level of care assessments, outpatient, intensive outpatientand partial hospitalizationservices.
Individuals interested in receiving treatment for eating disorders can contact Veritas Collaborative’s Clinical Intake Team at (919) 908-9740 or admissions@veritascollaborative.com. Call (804) 774-4550 for additional information specific to the DBT Skills Group.
About Veritas Collaborative
Veritas Collaborative is a specialty healthcare system for the treatment of eating disorders. Veritas provides a range of individualized, evidence-based services for ages 8 and older, including inpatient, acute residential, partial hospitalization, intensive outpatient, and outpatient levels of care in a gender-diverse and inclusive environment. Veritas envisions a world in which all persons with eating disorders and their families have access to best-practice care and hold hope for a cure. Our multidisciplinary team of treatment professionals include physicians, psychiatrists, dietitians, therapists, nurses, teachers, culinary team members and therapeutic assistants.
