About this Webinar:
Parenting a child with an eating disorder is among the most frightening and exhausting experiences a family can face. Whether caring for a young child, a teenager, or an adult living at home, caregivers often find themselves carefully orchestrating meals to match shifting preferences, laboring to prepare just the right food, and quietly allowing meals to go uneaten rather than face the distress and conflict that eating demands. Many caregivers are also genuinely uncertain about what expectations are reasonable to hold around food, meals, therapy, or tending to household needs , and are unsure whether to push, accommodate, or simply wait. While these responses come from love and a genuine desire to help, they can also inadvertently interfere with progress towards recovery. These behaviors are known as family accommodations , and research finds they are understandably prevalent among caregivers of individuals with eating disorders. While accommodation often reduces distress in the short term, it can quietly reinforce illness-maintaining patterns over time.
This presentation draws on SPACE (Supportive Parenting for Anxious Childhood Emotions), developed by Eli Lebowitz, Ph.D. at the Yale Child Study Center, an evidence-based parent-only treatment model to reduce parental accommodation. The therapy is designed to help parents understand why accommodation develops, what it costs both parent and child, and how to begin responding differently. Participants will leave with practical tools for managing caregiver distress in high-stakes moments, language for responding with both warmth and confidence, and a structured, compassionate approach to reducing accommodation , one targeted change at a time. This talk is designed for parents and loved ones of individuals of all ages, from young children to adults, living with restrictive eating disorders, binge-purge disorders, ARFID, or other forms of disordered eating. The aim is to help caregivers show up for their child in a way that actively supports recovery without compromising their own wellbeing in the process.
Guest Bio:
Chief Clinical Officer, Center for Evidence Based Treatment
Amy Kalasunas (she/her), LPCC-S, CCMHC, is a behaviorist with over 25 years of experience working within evidence-based treatment models. A DBT-Linehan Board of Certification Certified Clinician, she has extensive training in Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) and its sub- specialty area of DBT for Multi-diagnostic Eating Disorders (MED-DBT), DBT- Prolonged Exposure for Borderline Personality Disorder, and DBT supervision and consultation team adherence practices. In addition to her DBT-LBC Certification, Amy co-chairs the DBT LBC Communications Committee. A sought-after instructor, she consistently achieves the highest evaluation scores when presenting two- and three-day workshops on the topics of comprehensive Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), DBT and Multi-diagnostic Eating Disorders, and DBT-Prolonged Exposure and Eating Disorders. Amy has also developed, piloted, and researched interventions for parents of multi-diagnostic adult children using an adaptation of the Supportive Parenting for Anxious Childhood Emotions (SPACE) protocol and DBT.
Date: Wednesday, September 9th, 2026
Time: 9:00 AM Pacific / 12:00 PM Eastern / 5:00 PM UK
Location: Zoom Platform
United States
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