Any reviews? They offer partial hospitalization and intensive outpatient. Off-campus supportive housing is available. Please post in comments below. You can check out the FAQ and Guidelines for suggested questions. Thank you!
New England Eating Disorders (NEED) Program at Sweetser
- March 22, 2020
- Adolescent, Adult, IOP/PHP, Maine, Transitional Living, Treats Males, USA Treatment Center
- 5
I reached out about this program about 6 months ago and was told they only have licensing in Maine (I’m a NH resident near the Maine border) which is unfortunate since NH has very few options. I asked what services were like since I was looking at colleges in Maine, and they said the waitlist was over a year. Hopefully NH and Maine can get some more eating disorder services soon.
It is a virtual only PHP program now for children and adolescents only. Have you considered Cambridge EDC in Concord, NH? There’s a couple programs in southern NH, too. CEDC has the most experience with EDs of the NH programs. The original CEDC is in Cambridge, MA. If you needed medical stabilization, try Dartmouth Hitchcock
in Lebanon, NH. Idk the age cutoff, but they have an ED MSP for younger people created by an ED specialized dietician named Marcia Herrin who practiced/practices in Lebanon and provided/provides services to Dartmouth College students on campus as well. If you have trouble finding services, see if you could email Marcia Herrin* or call her office (it is called Herrin Nutrition Services). She knows where residents of NH and VT with various types of insurance are eligible for treatment.
When I checked NEED out back in 2019 it was still in-person ages 5-85 mixed together in meals and groups with each other. The director of NEED has lost their medical license multiple times. I have an inperson interview in 2015, and she and the social worker gave me huge red flags. That was before the program moved to Saco, ME. She moves locations every time she loses her license or burns a bridge with a facility. After Saco, she opened a private practice in Gorham, ME. Not being accepted to that program is beneficial to you.
If your entire immediate family could not
logistically or was unwilling to attend every Friday’s full day of programming, the program would not attend you. I couldn’t get accepted for that reason with siblings living and working out of state, a parent over 6 hours away, and other parent is abusive and I’m no contact. To get treatment, I was expected to reengage with my abusive parent and have them come in person every Friday from across the country, same with one sibling, just have them fly in weekly since it’s short term. Get your whole family to take every Friday off for the duration of the program…with all that travel, they’d have had to take 2 days off every week. Who can afford that?
*name allowed because it is in the name of the clinic – admin
People from Maine go to MA for treatment or other states. For adults,
Crossroads primary substance abuse treatment accepts secondary eating disorders Residential, PHP, and IOP. I gave it a try. It didn’t help at all to spend time in treatment for a problem I don’t have hoping to get help with ED. Staff didn’t know how to provide meal support. No ED specific groups. When insurance paid for IOP, that meant I couldn’t see my outpatient therapist or
psychiatrist, which caused issue.
the IOP program did not offer therapy,
med mgmt, or dietitian sessions unless
you’re comfy discussing your weight goals and meal plan needs in front of the entire nutrition group. You see the dietitian when you admit and once every 1-2 weeks for nutrition group. I was told I wasn’t meeting meal plan requirements, yet never received a meal plan or got any help to set one up. People who had come from out of state programs like Walden, Monte Nido, etc used their residential meal plans due to lack of support and specialized ED
knowledge at Crossroads.
I would recommend this program to any women dealing with substance abuse as well as disordered eating or ED, as they specialize in gender specific substance abuse treatment. If you need that and got more stabilized with sobriety, it would allow you to work on your ED more afterwards. Crossroads will be aware and discuss your food
symptoms as related to substance abuse and make sure your health isn’t impacted, that you get medical care you need during treatment, and help set up aftercare for you. It’s also a program that has an additional location for women who need treatment and are pregnant as well as women who need treatment and want to have their children with them during the stay.
I have not been to this program. I have been to the only other program in Maine, which is called Crossroads for ED IOP. I could review that program.
That would be great, thank you! I made a page for Crossroads here:
https://edtreatmentreview.com/crossroads-maine/