Telephone Support
The Eating Disorders Foundation Phone Counselling service is staffed by trained telephone counsellors who are ready to take calls Monday to Friday between the hours of 9am to 5pm.
The counselling service provides support for people who are suffering from an eating disorder and their family and friends. The service offers generalist counselling that does not discriminate. People call about various issues pertaining to eating disorders and needs of callers may vary across genders and age groups and between rural and metropolitan areas.
Our service is not a replacement for treatment and should only be used as a complementary support and referral service for eating disorders sufferers and their families and friends. As a referral service, we have contact details for various services such as GP’s, Dieticians, Counsellors, Psychologists and Psychiatrists who specialise in eating disorders in the rural and metropolitan areas of NSW. We can also refer people to various organisations Australia wide that deal specifically with eating disorders and who can provide information for that particular state.
If you call out of office hours, or our counselling line is busy, you will be asked to leave a message on our answering machine. The information you leave on the EDF answering machine is highly confidential and when your call is returned by a counsellor, they will not disclose any private information to anyone that may answer the phone. They will simply leave a message by stating their name and let the person on the other end know that they are returning your call. The counsellor will not mention where they are calling from and what the call is about at any stage.
EDF counsellors are ready to talk and listen no matter how big or how small the problem might seem. They are trained to offer emotional support in times of crisis or when callers may be feeling down.
Sometimes it helps to just know that someone is listening, that you never have to be alone.
Some of the issues associated with eating disorders that people call about include:
- Family issues
- Relationship issues
- Physical health
- Other mental health concerns related to the eating disorder
- Suicide Prevention and Support
- Loneliness
- Depression
- Self-esteem
What to expect when you call the Eating Disorders Foundation
The counselling line is a fully confidential service. You can tell a telephone counsellor as much or as little as you want to. Telephone counsellors will listen, support and guide you.
It may help to remember that EDF telephone counsellors have a vast array of experience dealing with all the various issues relating to eating disorders and many have recovered from an eating disorder themselves.
Call Costs
Calls to EDF are the cost of a local or long distance call, however additional charges may apply for calls from pay phones or mobiles. Mobile call rates are dependent on the caller’s carrier and their contracted rate.
Confidentiality and Privacy
The privacy of our callers is very important.
Protecting caller privacy and confidentiality is fundamental to the way EDF cares for people.
All EDF staff and volunteers are required to keep caller personal information confidential.
Calls to EDF are not monitored or recorded and only general information about the call is kept on a database for research and statistical purposes. This database does not contain people’s names, addresses or phone numbers and only lists the reason for the call and what help was provided to the person.
Confidentiality of information collected during a call, and the anonymity of a caller will be upheld at all times except in cases where:
- A caller is at imminent risk of injury or death by suicide
- A caller makes specific threats to harm third parties
- A caller is at imminent risk of injury or death by another person
- There are reasonable grounds for believing that child abuse is occurring and/or where an intervention may be required to ensure a child’s safety
- Situations where there is a legal imperative to provide information
- Circumstances where it is necessary to discuss matters related to the call or caller for the purposes of providing the best possible service to the client, including through supervision processes or to ensure the safety and well-being of telephone counsellors