by Ayla Yersel The Vermont Center for Integrative Therapy (VTCIT), a South Burlington-based integrated mental health care center, is launching a few new programs in conjunction with National Eating Disorder Awareness Week, including a new family support group, training programs for practitioners to better treat eating disorders, and a new subscription model that provides special benefits to members.
Founder and Director of VTCIT Bree Greenberg-Benjamin said that the practice is launching two programs to train Vermont practitioners how to treat eating disorders-- one for local healthcare professionals, and one for their own staff.
Vermont Center for Integrative Therapy. Photo courtesy of VTCIT.
VTCIT will launch its training program for healthcare professionals in Chittenden County who want to learn and understand how to work with eating disorders, she said. This training program will start probably in April, and will run for seven weeks. The hour-long sessions will be on Fridays at noon, she said.
The practice also plans to launch an Intensive Outpatient Program (IOP), an in-house training program for VTCIT’s practitioners that focuses on how to work with eating disorders.
Although this program will at first be for VTCIT’s in-house staff, Greenberg-Benjamin said the practice plans to expand the program and hire new workers. The organization hopes to get IOP launched by the end of April or beginning of May, she said.
VTCIT has been running an in-house version of the IOP for the last four years, she said.
“Everyone who works here comes to group supervision at least once a month that is eating disorder specific,” she said. “Now I’m just going to be running a similar type of education for people in the community.”
Another program VTCIT will launch is VTCIT Community, a subscription model that will allow people to pay a fixed price of either $40 or $80 per month, she said.
Vermont Center for Integrative Therapy. Photo courtesy of VTCIT.
For the $40 service, members will get a half an hour service of their choice, either half an hour of individual yoga, individual meditation, or a half an hour massage or another kind of bodywork, or one chiropractic visit. For $80, the same services will be offered for an hour, she said.
In addition, members will also get 10 percent off all of the additional services that the business offers that are out of pocket.
VTCIT Community has been in the works for several months, Greenberg-Benjamin said.
“Our goal is to take people who are interested in integrative care and make it really easy and affordable for those people to commit to a year of that care,” she said.
Greenberg-Benjamin says she hopes it’s going to bring in a lot of people who are curious about integrative care.
“Not just people who have serious mental health issues,” she said. “But also the average person who says ‘I just want to live better, I want to feel more at ease and have less stress. “
VTCIT launches programs in honor of National Eating Disorder Awareness Week
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