Session Speakers

Dr Leanne Barron
Leanne is a general practitioner with diverse experience, including treating malnutrition, allergy, adult and paediatric emergency medicine, paediatrics, and general practice. She currently works as a GP in Brisbane, in private practice and in association with the QUT Eating Disorder Clinic. Leanne believes that eating disorders are highly complex medical conditions, which, in addition to psychological support and treatment, require an understanding of the medical and biochemical susceptibilities and adaptations within the individual, which have contributed to the development and perpetuation of the eating disorder.
Leanne is the Queensland GP representative for the state-wide Eating Disorder Advisory Group, regularly speaks to family information groups for the Eating Disorders Association Queensland, and has presented research papers at ANZAED conferences. She believes that patients with eating disorders are caring, intelligent people with limitless potential, and that helping them and their families to understand medical aspects of their condition is an important part of keeping them medically safe and optimising their recovery.

Belinda Caldwell, Executive Director FEAST
Belinda is a parent of a daughter with Anorexia Nervosa, a Carer Consultant with the Victorian Centre of Excellence in Eating Disorders, and the Executive Director of FEAST. Belinda is also a member of the AHWED Conference Executive Committee.
Belinda and her husband undertook Maudsley/Family Based Treatment to support her daughter’s recovery through the Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne. Having experienced the benefit of FEAST’s Around the Dinner Table forum, she became involved in FEAST as a member, and then as a Board Member, before taking on her current role as Executive Director.
As well as her own valuable carer experience, both as a parent and as a carer consultant, Belinda brings to the conference her understanding of the sector from a long professional career in nursing. She is passionate about supporting families and carers to be recognised as key and effective members of the treatment team.

Dr Lisa Dawson
Dr Lisa Dawson is a clinical psychologist and researcher who works on the Eating Disorder Intensive Program for Adolescents at The Children's Hospital at Westmead working on a Day Program for adolescents and their families and facilitating the Multi-Family Therapy Program.
She also works in a post-doctoral position as Senior Research Coordinator at The Centre for Family-Based Mental Health Care at St Vincent's Private Hospital researching the implementation of the Open Dialogue approach to mental health care in NSW.
Lisa is an Honorary Associate of the University of Sydney where she has taught on eating disorders and adolescent mental health, as well as supervising research students. She has a strong interest in working with families and recovery model approaches to mental health care.

Claire Diffey
Claire is a credentialed mental health nurse, and an individual, couples and family therapist with over 30 years’ experience in the mental health sector, particularly in the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services. She has extensive experience in consultation, education, training and service development in a broad range of service and educational systems.
Her interest and clinical work in eating disorders has developed over many years, culminating in her employment as an Eating Disorders Senior Clinician with the Victorian Centre of Excellence in Eating Disorders (CEED) in 2007 and appointment as Manager in 2008.
The central aspect of Claire’s work at CEED is supporting and collaborating with mental health services across Victoria in their delivery of eating disorders treatments, family focussed and empowerment approaches.

Dr Mandy Goldstein
Dr Mandy Goldstein is a clinical psychologist with 10 years’ experience in the treatment of eating disorders and trauma. She is the Principal Clinical Psychologist at Mandy Goldstein Psychology, and works as an Associate at the Redleaf Practice, both private practices in Sydney, specialising in the treatment of eating disorders. Mandy has been involved in inpatient, outpatient and day program treatment settings for patients with eating disorders, and has undergone specialist training in the treatment of adults and adolescents with eating disorders and provides consultation and supervision to trainee psychologists in FBT.
Mandy has a particular interest in both the use of evidence based treatment, and its dissemination beyond research environments, making effective treatment more accessible to clinicians and patients alike.

Dr Scott Griffiths
Dr. Scott Griffiths is a National Health and Medical Research Council Research Fellow at the University of Melbourne. Scott's research is focused on the male experience of eating and body image disorders across the full spectrum of males' thinness- and muscularity-focused concerns. Currently, Scott is leading a set of Australia-first longitudinal studies on body image, muscle dysmorphia, and steroid use among adolescents, young males, and individuals at-risk for clinical disorders. Scott's research has attracted multiple distinctions and awards, including from the Australian Academy of Science, the Society for Mental Health Research, the North American and Australian and New Zealand Academies for Eating Disorders, and the University of Sydney.

Sarah King
Sarah King is an Accredited Exercise Physiologist who specialises in eating disorder recovery for those in inpatient and outpatient settings. She provides medically appropriate tailored exercise to facilitate improved mental and physical health outcomes for all her clients, and provides education to dispel commonly held unhelpful beliefs around physical activity.

Sarah's aim is to help individuals with eating disorders, as well as their friends and family, create a healthy relationship with exercise and their body and adopt an active lifestyle that promotes recovery.

Dr Rod McClymont
Dr Rod McClymont is a paediatrician and adolescent physician specialising in the assessment and treatment of eating disorders, based in the regional setting of Bathurst, NSW. His initial specialist training in eating disorders was with children, adolescents and young adults at Westmead Hospital, however as a clinician working in a resource-poor setting he now provides both inpatient and outpatient clinical services - for children, adolescents, and for adults of all ages.
Rod is a keen advocate for improving the accessibility, availability and adaptability of services and in particular has focused on improving transition between inpatient and outpatient service settings, and on minimising the disconnect between services aimed at young people and those for adults. He is a keen advocate for the development of services that integrate carer/partner/family/parent involvement wherever possible, and via his involvement with FEAST has supported people with eating disorders and their parents to access services Australia wide.

Sarah McMahon
Sarah McMahon, Director of BodyMatters Australasia, has over a decade experience working as a psychologist supporting individuals - and their families - in recovery. She has successfully treated over 200 clients and operates from a health-based (rather than weight-based) paradigm.
Sarah is a familiar voice in the media, the resident Psychologist in Womens Health & Fitness Australia magazine and contributor to Steve Biddulph's 2013 international best seller, Raising Girls. In addition, Sarah is passionate about advocacy, holds a Masters in Public Health and is a co-founder and the current Chair of grassroots advocacy group 'Collective Shout: For a world free of sexploitation'.

Christine Morgan, CEO Butterfly

Christine has been CEO of the Butterfly Foundation since 2008, and in that time has grown Butterfly into a widely respected and highly effective national organisation for consumers with eating disorders and their carers in Australia. The Butterfly Foundation is a provider of innovative, evidence-based and evidence-generating services including the Intensive Outpatient Program and Day Program. Christine was instrumental in the founding of the ground-breaking National Eating Disorders Collaboration (NEDC) in 2009, and under her leadership Australia received its first federal funding for a national telephone and e-health helpline for eating disorders, ED HOPE, in 2012.
Christine is a board member of Mental Health Australia, Australia’s peak body for mental health, she sits on the implementation committee for the NSW Government’s Eating Disorders Plan, and plays a significant advocacy role in media and to government in furthering Australia’s understanding of eating disorders.

Helen Searle
Helen is the Manager of Carer and Consumer Liaison at The Butterfly Foundation. In her role she works with carers and people with lived experience who wish to share their stories. Helen is passionate about the importance of the voice of the lived experience and that it is used to inform practice.

Helen is the parent of a daughter who has recovered from an eating disorder, and moved from a 20 year corporate career to pursue a dream of listening to and representing those with lived experiences of eating disorders. She is a trained facilitator in the Collaborative Care Skills Workshops and has represented the carer and consumers in advisory groups for Butterfly, CEED and Alfred CYMHS.

Dr Amy Talbot
Amy is a clinical psychologist with a strong interest in child and adolescent populations and eating and feeding disorders. She is the director of a multi-disciplinary group private practice in Northwest Sydney and the Supervising Clinical Psychologist at the Eating Disorders and Obesity Clinic at Western Sydney University. Amy has previously worked as an ABA therapist and is trained in various clinical approaches to eating and feeding disorders including CBT-E, Maudsley Family Based Treatment and the Sequential Oral Sensory (SOS) approach to feeding disorders.
Amy has published multiple articles in the area of neuro-psychological functioning in eating disorders and was the invited co-author of the Treatment of ARFID article in the recent publication The Encyclopedia of Eating Disorders. In her previous role at the Children’s Hospital at Westmead she was involved in the development and assessment of a novel emotion-based social skills program for children with ASD and intellectual disability. Amy’s current research and clinical focus is on supporting families affected by eating and feeding disorders.

Chris Thornton
Chris Thornton is a clinical psychologist and is the Clinical Director of The Redleaf Practice, a multi-discipline private practice that specialises in the outpatient treatment of eating and related disorders. Chris has 25 years experience working on inpatient units, day programs and outpatient services both in Australia and New Zealand. He has been trained by the developers of Family Based Treatment (FBT) and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy – Enhanced (CBT-e). Chris has a commitment to the provision and dissemination of evidence based treatment.

Chris is a past president of the Australia and New Zealand Academy of Eating Disorders. He has presented nationally and internationally and authored numerous scientific papers into the treatment of eating disorders.

Nicki Wilson
Nicki lives in Auckland, New Zealand and has been a member of the Board of Directors of FEAST since late 2012. When her daughter was diagnosed with Anorexia Nervosa in 2011 Nicki discovered that the lack of understanding and experience in diagnosis and treatment for eating disorders was causing unacceptable suffering for patients and their loved ones. With the help of FEAST and their online carers forum, At The Dinner Table, Nicki and her husband Dave gained the knowledge, resources and strength to support their daughter to recover.

Nicki now works full time as a volunteer on the FEAST Australasian Taskforce and as President of EDANZ (Eating Disorders Association of New Zealand) providing support, education and advocating for improved eating disorder treatment. Nicki attends conferences nationally and internationally to remain up to date with the latest research and knowledge in eating disorder treatment, and is a regular speaker to audiences including trainee doctors, health professionals working with young people, nurses, GPs, teachers and community groups.

Sarah Young
Sarah Young is a clinical psychologist with experience in the treatment of eating disorders, anxiety and depression in children, adolescents and adults. She is trained in a range of evidence-based treatments including Family-Based Treatment for Anorexia Nervosa, Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy, and Attachment-Based Family Therapy. Sarah works at the Children’s Hospital at Westmead and is also an Associate at The Redleaf Practice, working primarily with children and adolescents with eating disorders and their families.

Sarah's current research focuses on compulsive exercise in adults with anorexia nervosa, which she has published in scientific journals and presented at national and international conferences. Sarah is a member of the Australian and New Zealand Academy for Eating Disorders (ANZAED) as well as the international Academy for Eating Disorders (AED).