Clinician Appreciation Day: Recognizing and Responding to Eating Disorders

Clinician Appreciation Day is an opportunity to gather with fellow clinicians, learn from experts, and connect over lunch.

8:30 am: Registration and Light Fare

9:00 am: Training Begins (see description below)

12:30 pm: Lunch (included in registration)

2:00 pm: Event Ends

This training provides mental health clinicians with essential knowledge to recognize eating disorders, assess risk, and respond ethically and effectively across diverse populations. An anti-oppressive framework is integrated throughout, with focused attention on how weight stigma, diet culture, systemic bias, and dominant diagnostic models shape who is identified, who is overlooked, and who gains access to care. Participants will explore eating disorder diagnoses within their broader social and cultural contexts, including the limitations and harms associated with BMI-based frameworks and the term obesity. The training emphasizes respectful, client-directed language, awareness of clinician bias, and the impact of structural inequities on marginalized populations, including people in larger bodies, people of color, men, and older adults.

Level: Intermediate

Learning Objectives

After attending this course, participants will be able to:

• Increase comfort in recognizing and differentiating eating disorder diagnoses based on clinical presentation.
• Identify early warning signs, risk factors, and medical and psychological complications associated with eating disorders.
• Challenge prevalent myths and misconceptions that contribute to stigma, misdiagnosis, delayed intervention, and inequitable access to care.
• Examine how personal weight bias, diet culture, and dominant health narratives may influence clinical judgment and professional practice.
• Apply effective screening strategies and determine when and how to refer clients for specialized eating disorder treatment.
• Implement practical strategies to reduce weight stigma and challenge diet culture within clinical and professional settings.

Course Outline

9:00 am: Introductions and Framing

9:10 am: Objectives, Foundations, Framing

10:15 am: Recognition and Clinical Understanding

11:20 am: Break

11:35 am: Asssessment, Referral, and Next Steps

12:05 pm: Resources, Integration and Wrap-Up

Carolyn Karoll, LCSW-C, CEDS-C, is a licensed clinical social worker, approved supervisor, and Certified Eating Disorder Specialist and Approved Consultant through the International Association of Eating Disorders Professionals. She specializes in the assessment and treatment of eating disorders across the lifespan and works from a weight-inclusive, trauma-informed, and social justice-oriented framework. Her approach centers on eradicating weight stigma and helping clients understand the cultural and systemic forces that shape body image, food relationships, and self-worth. Carolyn provides individual, family, and group therapy and collaborates closely with multidisciplinary treatment teams. Carolyn’s insights are frequently featured in media outlets and speaking engagements. She is an expert blogger for Psychology Today, where she authors Eating Disorder Recovery: Understanding and Overcoming Eating Disorders, and she co-authored Eating Disorder Group Therapy: A Collaborative Approach, a professional resource for clinicians.

This course is provided free to current Catholic Charities of Baltimore employees and for a fee to non-employees. Registration and additional information, including cost is available via Eventbrite. Registration closes at 11:59 pm on March 20, 2025 or when space is full, whichever comes first. Refunds may be requested via the Eventbrite platform until March 20, 2025 at 11:59 pm; after that date no refund will be given. Please contact Johanna Miller at [email protected] with any questions, concerns, or requests for special accommodations.

Course Completion & CE Info

Course completion requirements: Participants must attend the entire course and complete a course evaluation to earn CE credit. Certificates of completion will be e-mailed within 10 business days

This course qualifies for 3 contact hours. See below for specific approvals.

Associated Catholic Charities (Catholic Charities of Baltimore) is authorized by the Board of Social Work Examiners in Maryland to sponsor social work continuing education learning activities and maintains full responsibility for this program. This training qualifies for 3 hours in Category 1 continuing education units in anti-oppressive social work practice.

Catholic Chariites of Baltimore (Associated Catholic Charities)

2300B Dulaney Valley Road

Timonium, MD 21093

667-600-2000

[email protected]

www.cc-md.org

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Host or Publisher Catholic Charities of Baltimore