We recently connected with Kathy Spencer Sydney Williams and have shared our conversation below.
Kathy Spencer, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to hear about how you went about setting up your own practice and if you have any advice for professionals who might be considering starting their own?
Really, our business grew out of a need. We kept running into clinicians that had eating disorder clients and wanted resources or ideas on how to treat their clients. It is a very complicated and nuanced disease that there just wasn’t time or space for us to be able to give them all they needed and we didn’t know where to point them to get a full comprehensive training. So, we started our own and this is what it has grown into. Our first training was for a friend’s office. It was supposed to be 2 hours. As we were working on it, we realized there was so much information, so it became 3 hours…and then it became a second training the next month of another 3 hours. And 6 hours still wasn’t enough to fully train people, so it became a 2 day, 12 hour training. Honestly, it could be more. We have talked about expanding it to a third day, or offering a second, more advanced training due to the complexity, but we will see what comes.
Our business is a huge passion project for us. All of this was started because we want people to be aware of the dangers of diet culture and to support clinicians in helping clients with eating disorders. We are still in our infancy as a company, but learning and creating more each week.
If we could go back and talk to ourselves a year ago, we would tell ourselves to get creative, start dreaming big earlier on, get organized and prioritize this new company because things are coming our way rapidly. We stressed so much about getting opportunities to train and marketing, but it continues to come together organically as we are consistent with our work. One of our biggest recommendations is to have confidence in what you know, use your resources (or find the resources) you need to make everything flow smoothly. Next, if you are going to have a business partner, ensure that it is someone with similar values and desires. In addition, make sure that they are someone you can work through and communicate with during difficult circumstances and that they compliment your work style. For instance, Sydney has ADHD. She can hyperfocus on something for quite some time and get so much done, but when she is done, she is done. Kathy is amazing at going in and finishing up projects (and let’s get real, she also has to start them…). Lastly, be willing to take risks and invest in yourself and your company including financially.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
Sydney Williams, LCSW:; My first job was as a receptionist at a counseling center. I think it just set my life up to direct me into being a social worker. In college, I had many more experiences that were very “social worky”. I didn’t know what I wanted to do for my major or my career, and I had a friend who knew me well say, “Syd, why are you fighting this? You are meant to be a social worker.” I changed my major the next day.
From there I went to Grad school, became a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and have been a therapist for over a decade. I started my own group practice, Evergreen Therapy Collective, 3 years ago. We specialize in Eating Disorders, Body Image, LGBTQIA+ community issues, infertility, pregnancy, postpartum depression and anxiety, ADHD/neurodivergence, etc.
Kathy Spencer, LCSW, MHPE
My journey in this field started when I was in high school. My best friend had an eating disorder. I remember as a teenager feeling worried and unsure how to help her. I look back now and can see how I was doing the best I could, but some of the things I did may not have been the most helpful.
My education and career have been greatly influenced by this early experience with my friend. I graduated from BYU with a Bachelor’s degree in dietetics. From there I went on to get a master’s degree in Health Promotion and Education with an emphasis on eating disorder prevention from University of Utah. During all of this time, I worked at an eating disorder treatment center. I learned a ton about the impact of eating disorders on individuals and families. In 2018 I decided I wanted to do more, so I went back to school to get a Master’s in Social Work from BYU. After graduation, I worked in the same Eating Disorder Treatment Center until I could get fully licensed as a LCSW. In 2022 I started my private practice focusing on Eating Disorder Recovery, body image, and trauma. I even have an Eating Disorder dietitian working for me.
In 2022, the universe brought more opportunities for us. We recognized the lack of resources and trainings for therapists wanting to start seeing Eating Disorder clients. The experiences just kept coming. We realized that continuing education for those that already have a knowledge of working with ED clients existed as we were attempting to point people in the right direction, but we could not find one that taught the very basic fundamentals of eating disorder recovery. This is when we spent hundreds of hours reading, researching and creating our 12 CEU training, “Eating Disorders Made Simple: Assessing, Diagnosing, and Treating Eating Disorders.” The training takes place twice a year at this time, but the goal is to increase that to once a quarter.
From here, we have spoken at conferences and trainings offered by different organizations (like the Children’s Justice Center and UVU’s Annual Mental Health Conference) and have done individual trainings for treatment centers and therapeutic offices, along with many individual consultations with Residential Treatment Centers and individuals wanting help with their eating disorder clients. Kathy was even featured on a Radio West documentary on Sister Missionaries in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and eating disorders and a follow up Radiowest hour long panel discussion on the topic.
This has all culminated into our business where we offer consultations for individual clients (no matter their level of care), 12 CEU Eating Disorders Made Simple Trainings (we also have a workbook that goes along with the training), access to all of our resources for free (just email us, we got you!), diagnostic help when struggling in knowing what to do, recommendations for treatment placement for clients or family members with eating disorders and level of care recommendations. We will also help clinicians create outpatient treatment teams for clients as eating disorder clients require work with dietitians and doctors that are knowledgeable about eating disorders. Furthermore, we train RTC’s on how to make their facility more eating disorder friendly, train the staff on how to work with clients with Eating Disorders, and train the therapists on what to do with the ED clients. We also train entire outpatient offices on eating disorders from the basics of assessment, to full on treatment from the start to recovery. We use all of the evidence-based practices based on the client’s diagnosis and their needs level in our recommendations. We provide lists of resources and therapeutic help along with everything discussed in the consultation to those we are working with.
How’d you meet your business partner?
This is our favorite story. It is interesting that our friendship was founded while working in a treatment center for eating disorders and it is what we both continue to do today. We have been friends for about 16 years now. We were working the night shift, but on different units. Neither of us remembers our first actual interaction, but remember friends being shocked that we hadn’t met each other yet because we were so similar. We got really lucky (minus the forever ruined sleep patterns from working graveyard shifts). We just kind of clicked. There are two other friends that are part of our forever friendship coming out of that treatment center. When Sydney started her master’s program, all four of us moved in together with some of us not knowing each other super well. Because we all worked in mental health, it was such a supportive and therapeutic environment for us to be in. None of us have had such an easy living situation before or since (and that includes marriages and children). We traveled, lived, coped, grew and cemented our friendship into something that is literally forever.
One of our favorite things we did was we would buy one of those decadent, huge, Matilda like, chocolate cakes from Costco. We didn’t have a dishwasher at our house, so we would just grab a fork for everyone and dig in while watching TV or talking. The forks would stay in the cake container until we were all done. We loved it. When Sydney was dating her husband, he told her he had never met four people that were so alike. We have fun together and do weird things. When we get together to work it is always enjoyable. We have to start off by catching up (we literally speak almost daily), laugh about a few things, have Sydney’s kids obsess over Kathy for a bit, and then jump into the work we do together.
Putting training and knowledge aside, what else do you think really matters in terms of succeeding in your field?
As a clinician, we think the most valuable thing you can do for your clients is to be in tune. To set aside all of the thoughts of what a therapist “should” be doing, and just be with your clients in their pain, in their sorrow, sadness, joy, and successes. I think this translates into training. If someone wants to speak and train others, there is no set way to do it. We suggest being in tune with the clinicians around you. Be willing to help out and offer pieces of what you do that filters into the business (as you obviously deserve to get paid for your work too) and seek out understanding of the need that others have. You also have to HUSTLE. We have done thousands of hours of research, writing, creating presentations for absolutely no money. We have to get our names out there, and that requires a lot of sacrifice that can hopefully pay off in the future. Do not expect to go out there and get a ton of interest at first. You need to be willing to put in a LOT of work to make it happen. We absolutely love presenting, consulting, training, etc. If you do not love it, don’t do it. It will be way too much work for very little payout.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.theeatingdisorderconsultants.com
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Linda Spencer