Veritas Collaborative
Now known as The Emily Program
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Veritas Collaborative is now known as The Emily Program. For up-to-date information, please see the The Emily Program profile..
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We’re excited to share that we’ve expanded our residential treatment offerings in Atlanta, Georgia to include adults of all ages. Previously, the program accepted adults up to age 24. This change will address the growing demand for adult programming in the region. “We’re pleased to extend care to more people in the Atlanta area,” said Taylor Rae Homesley, the facility's Executive Director. “It’s heartening to see more adults in the area reaching out for help with an eating disorder. With this program expansion, we’ll be able to meet this critical need for life-changing treatment.” Our Atlanta-based eating disorder treatment center, which provides comprehensive, multidisciplinary care for eating disorders including anorexia, bulimia, binge eating disorder, ARFID, and OSFED, will now offer residential, partial hospitalization, intensive outpatient, and outpatient service for children, adolescents, and adults of all ages. Inpatient services are currently available for those ages 8-24. The facility offers both individualized care and group treatment to equip individuals and their communities of support with the skills necessary to continue eating disorder recovery and thrive in their personal and professional environments. For additional information about Veritas Collaborative or to inquire about treatment, contact 855-875-5812 or visit the link below.
Meet Parkavi Chellappa (she/her), MD, the Director of Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Services in North Carolina who has been with Veritas for almost seven years. She shares her experience of working in a collaborative environment, the unique aspects of psychiatric care within child and adolescent eating disorder treatment, and more. "Eating disorders are usually sneaky and try to find loopholes to get away with behaviors, even when the patient genuinely wants to get better. This eating disorder characteristic can often get in the way of a patient’s recovery. By having all the disciplines providing care to a patient under one roof, working toward the same goals collaboratively, we can plug those holes and support the patient better. We can also pool resources to make support available to patients and their families multiple times during the day and over the course of treatment, which is more than humanly possible for a provider from any one discipline working alone. Collaborative care ensures timely detection of eating disorder complications and side effects, which can then be addressed quickly. It also helps the clinicians treating the patients, as they can get updates from other disciplines to help modify or dictate their own next steps in the patient’s care," says Parkavi. Read more of Parkavi's experience at the link below.
At Accanto Health, we are committed to fostering a culture of acceptance and respect for staff and clients alike. Our Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) Council, led by an EDI Advisory Council, guides us in upholding these values and enacting meaningful change within our organization and beyond. We are thrilled to highlight the passion of several members of our EDI Advisory Council. These staff, representing both The Emily Program and Veritas Collaborative brands, are at the forefront of the Council’s work to advocate for change, create safe spaces, amplify marginalized voices, and celebrate diversity and community. Their voices are a testament to the spirit of our EDI Council in action. In addition to driving change, the EDI Council also holds steadfast to its commitment to creating spaces that foster inclusivity—a belief deeply ingrained in its members. Emerald Smith, Clinical Director of our Charlotte site, draws on her past workplace experiences to underscore the critical need for safe spaces. She has seen the negative impact of microaggressions on staff and patients and is determined to foster an inclusive environment. “As a leader, I want to create a safe space for staff and patients to feel heard, understood, and supported. We all must feel safe to learn and grow,” she affirms. Read more from our EDI Council at the link below.
Veritas Collaborative is thrilled to announce that we are adding a 12-bed inpatient unit for adults at our RTP Eating Disorder Treatment Center in Durham, North Carolina. With this expansion, we will address the growing demand for specialized adult services within the state. The existing Douglas location in Durham will continue to serve 25 residential patients, making 37 adult beds available across sites to patients in need of these higher levels of care. “We’re excited to offer more programming for adult patients in Durham where there’s a major need,” said Amy Gerberry, the Executive Director of the RTP facility. “Eating disorders are serious illnesses, but they are treatable. Patients can recover when they have access to effective, evidence-based care at the right time.” An estimated 9 percent of people in North Carolina will struggle with an eating disorder in their lifetime. The consequence of eating disorders remaining untreated or undertreated is alarming, as eating disorders have the second-highest mortality rate among mental illnesses, following opioid use disorder.
Accanto Health, a national leader in eating disorder specialty care and behavioral health services, announced the appointment of veteran behavioral health executive Dr. Tom Britton as CEO this week. Accanto Health encompasses renowned brands The Emily Program, Veritas Collaborative, and Gather Behavioral Health. "As the awareness of eating disorders and the need for quality, compassionate care continues to grow, it's vital to have our next leader be someone who understands multi-site behavioral health care services and appreciates the unique needs of clients, families, and staff" said Dirk Miller, Executive Chair of Accanto Health and Founder of The Emily Program. "Tom's passion for behavioral health and his commitment to excellence in care and walking beside those we serve make him the right fit to lead us forward." Britton expressed his excitement about joining Accanto Health, stating, “It is an incredible honor and privilege to join Accanto Health in the role of CEO. The merger of The Emily Program and Veritas Collaborative as well as the launch of Gather Behavioral Health has provided individuals in this country living with eating disorders comprehensive access to care and the tools necessary to enjoy a life of recovery.” Read more at the link below.
From the article: The colonial history, stigma and inequitable access to healthcare in the U.S. prevents many Native Americans from seeking healing services and support. Clinical practice, policy and research methods often fail to capture the features of pain and suffering experienced across Native communities living on tribal lands and across the U.S.A. Transforming mental health care for Natives means increasing Native clinicians and creating greater accessibility to services. For non-Native providers, this means adopting a decolonized framework to mental health. Doing so looks like accepting an Indigenous view of the world as a mutually supportive system with the cosmos, where well-being is balanced between body, mind and spirit. Read the full article at the link below. This article was written by Jesse Valentin, MSW, LICSW, a Diné two-spirit enrolled member of Navajo Nation and therapist at Gather Behavioral Health who provides consultancy for Indigenous mental health curriculum and program design. Gather Behavioral Health is an outpatient services initiative of the Accanto Health family of services which includes The Emily Program and Veritas Collaborative.
With the abundance of food, shared mealtimes, and large social gatherings, the holiday season can be immensely difficult for anyone living with or recovering from an eating disorder. According to Hilmar Wagner, MPH, RDN, LN, CD, there are four key aspects of successfully navigating the holiday season while in eating disorder recovery. His method for a successful holiday is called P.R.E.P., which you can use in your work with your patients to support them this holiday season and beyond. Read more about the P.R.E.P. method in the article below.
We are pleased to share that Veritas Collaborative’s Triangle Outpatient Center in Durham, North Carolina, has opened its doors! At this new facility, children, adolescents, and adults of all genders can access our individualized, best-practice outpatient eating disorder services in a warm and inclusive environment. Triangle Outpatient Center is located in the same Stirrup Creek Drive building that houses our inpatient and residential programs for children and adolescents, also known as our “RTP” location. With the launch of this facility, child and adolescent patients will now have a full continuum of care under one roof. The new Triangle Center wing offers Partial Hospitalization (PHP), Intensive Outpatient (IOP), and outpatient (OP) levels of care. Outpatient services are imperative for patients needing early intervention for an eating disorder or who are moving from a higher level of care. Nearby lodging will also be available for adult patients who live too far away to commute to treatment easily. Executive Director Sara Hofmeier, MS, LCMHCS, CEDS-S, will lead the Triangle Outpatient Center. Hofmeier has worked with patients with eating disorders since 2007 and has experience providing individual, group, and family therapy for patients with eating disorders across multiple levels of care. Read more at the link below.
TikTok’s newest food trend, “girl dinner,” highlights pulling together a meal from leftovers, which some say is a creative use of food and with potential nutritional value in the variety of food on the plate. Others say to exercise caution when the trend becomes a habit of eating too little food or eating foods without balanced nutritional value. Excerpt from the article: If an eating habit arises incapable of meeting nutritional needs, “that’s a red flag moment. “It’s no crime to have fun with food. That said, this trend raises some important questions, both clinically and culturally,” Bannister said. One big concern to Bannister is what could happen when people “overlook the thinly-veiled misogyny of these words,” he said. “What makes food ‘girl food’? And, perhaps bluntly, when surveying the landscape of images, why are there so many salads and so few cheeseburgers? I do wonder what the perfectly-sized, perfectly-presented ‘girl’ of the ‘girl dinner’ is supposed to look like. And what are the slow, creeping costs of the performative social media enterprise upon bodies and minds?” he questioned. Read more at the link below.
Expressive arts is just one of the many therapies our teams use to help our patients in their recovery journeys. It’s also one way for our non-clinical employees to connect with patients. Recently, Kate Norris, General Counsel and Chief Compliance Officer, and the compliance team worked together to create encouraging artwork that will be sent to both Veritas Collaborative and The Emily Program locations. “When our Accanto* compliance team visits our various sites, we often leave with full hearts after seeing the inspiring art our patients and staff create. For our team building activity this quarter, we partnered with our friends in Accanto’s Learning & Development department to create our own inspirational art for the staff and patients who inspire us the most,” said Norris. To see examples of our patient’s artwork, check out the site videos under our “Locations” tab on our website. You can read more about how we use expressive arts to empower recovery in our recent blog post, “Utilizing Expressive Arts in Eating Disorder Recovery.” *Veritas Collaborative and The Emily Program are brands under the Accanto Health family.
