Enhancing Clinical Outcomes Through Collaborative Care
Collaborative care is most effective when it is grounded in strong clinical frameworks, clear communication, and shared responsibility across a multidisciplinary team. When treatment approaches are aligned and well-coordinated, both clients and clinicians benefit from greater consistency, clarity, and sustainability.
While strong clinical frameworks are essential, recovery is also shaped by how support is experienced day to day, including the connection, consistency, and practical support that help people navigate life between sessions, as explored in The Power of Collaborative Care in Eating Disorder Recovery.
The Importance of Multidisciplinary Care – Deb Newburn
What then does one do when either they themselves, or their supports, recognise treatment is required?
Building a team:
Eating disorders can grow like Ivy, its tendrils finding their way through all parts of children, young people and adults. They will likely hijack a person’s strongest qualities, using intelligence and determination to hold on and resist alternative behaviours or ideas. An eating disorder’s narrative can become loud and persuasive in a sufferer’s mind, and its symptoms can be medically and psychologically dangerous, interfering with school, work, and social functioning. As such it is unlikely one professional will have all the skills, knowledge, and resource to provide appropriate treatment and manage the risks independently. .
Recent best practice guidelines from the National Eating Disorders Collaborative (NEDC) and the Australian & New Zealand Academy for Eating Disorders (ANZAED) emphasise the importance of a multidisciplinary team (MDT) for eating disorder treatment. The NEDC states that a minimum team should include a medical professional (usually a GP), a mental health professional (usually a psychologist), and a nutrition professional (usually a dietitian). They go on to say however that an optimal team may include additional professionals such as a psychiatrist, paediatrician, social worker, occupational therapist, physiotherapist, or an eating disorder peer support worker or coach.
Overcoming the barriers to recovery:
Where possible it is always the goal to keep clients out of hospital (though hospital is at times essential). Often our clients report that they leave their psychology and dietitian appointments feeling motivated, only to find that the ED is louder during the week, making it hard to follow through on agreed changes.This is where eating disorder coaches can add immense value. We are thrilled to work alongside Oliva Soha and her Uncovery team who will explain some of the amazing work her and her team do.
Enhancing Outcomes Through Early and Coordinated Care
In 2020 the ANZAED released standards for clinical practice. In addition to emphasising the need for an MDT, they recommended early intervention, well-coordinated services, personalised treatment plans, education for individuals and support people, and a prioritisation of referrals to those skilled in eating disorders treatment.
What we know is the earlier treatment begins, the better. This means not waiting to see if it passes, but asking for help as soon as you recognise something is wrong. Here at Person Centred Psychology & Allied Health we also believe anyone can recover (we have seen it!). So, for those who have had an eating disorder for some time, early might be as soon as possible after the desire for recovery is present.
Because eating disorders often provide a means for coping with difficult emotions or circumstances, recovery can be a period of high distress. It requires a commitment of time, and significant financial commitment, even with meaningful support from Medicare through Eating Disorder Plans. It’s natural that people are often tempted to take a slower approach. We get it. However, evidence, and our clinical experience shows full MDT, and intensive care with early change has best outcomes and costs less over time. It also reduces risk of therapy fatigue for clients and burnout for carers, making recovery more sustainable in the long term.
Recovery That’s Truly Connected
Eating disorder recovery is most sustainable when it is connected — when every professional works in unison and the person in recovery feels supported in all the moments of daily life. True connected care means no one is working in isolation. Each team member holds a piece of the recovery journey, and together they create a network that is steady, coordinated, and responsive to the individual’s needs.
At its core, recovery is about connection: reconnecting with ourselves as we learn to trust our bodies and minds, leaning on compassionate people who stand beside us, and working with professionals who guide and support us through the hardest moments. Collaborative care makes these connections possible.
When therapy, nutrition support, recovery coaching, and community are woven together like threads in a tapestry, recovery becomes something lived, practiced, and experienced in real time. That is the heart of truly connected care: a recovery that is supported, reinforced, and held from every angle.
Interested in exploring this kind of collaborative care?
Uncovery and Person-Centred Psychology & Allied Health are joining forces to develop a collaborative care offering that brings together clinical treatment and recovery coaching in a more connected, accessible, and sustainable way.
We recognise how important consistent, coordinated support is, and how difficult it can be to access or afford integrated care. This initiative is focused on exploring ways to make collaborative care more realistic and financially attainable, without compromising quality or continuity.
We are currently taking expressions of interest for this upcoming collaborative care offering. By joining the list, you’ll be among the first to receive updates and learn more about how this approach may support recovery.
Co-authored by:
Olivia Soha, Founder and Director of Uncovery, Eating Disorder Recovery Coaching
Deborah Newburn, Clinical Psychologist and Director of Person-Centred Psychology and Allied Health
