Who should enroll in this program?

If your child has issues that have interfered with prior treatment for weight loss. If they are demoralized from past failures and need help dealing with anxiety, social problems or poor self-esteem. This enhanced program is a perfect addition to Camp Shane’s  program
Camp Shane has engaged a group well-established psychologists and experts in weight management and child psychology to offer cognitive behavioral weight management groups throughout the summer program. 
These group therapies will help the campers develop new skills.

The Pediatric Weight Management Group

The Pediatric Weight Management Group of Long Island, a group of well established
psychologists and experts in weight management and child psychology, is running cognitive behavioral weight management sessions at camp.

Everyone in camp will participate in cognitive-behavioral training.  However, this optional program is for those campers whose families feel there may be an underlying psychological impediment responsible for weight gain. These sessions will focus on weight management issues only.

All staff are senior level licensed psychologists or social workers with expertise in weight management and child psychology. These sessions will further help campers to develop a skill base to maintain the wonderful success that they experience at camp.

In addition to the subject matter described in the program camp provides for all campers, these group therapies will help the campers develop skills in the following areas:
•setting challenging but achievable goals for eating and exercise
•self monitoring skills
•planning for difficult eating situations
•awareness of thoughts and feelings that affect eating and exercise
•development of new skills to cope with emotions
•dealing with the stress of obesity bias

The group sessions are pre-planned and are partly "lessons" and partly "workshops" in: self-monitoring, setting of specific goals, handling the "emotional" part of eating, ways the family can help to maintain weight loss, handling difficult eating situations, changing the cognitions, or thoughts, that contribute to unhealthful eating, and relapse prevention. All state of the art techniques are taught with emphasis on the generalization of the techniques after camp is done for the summer.

In CBT for obesity, during the weight loss part, the following cognitions are important: identifying and moderating unrealistic weight goals, tackling the history of body image concerns, understanding of the way eating is conceived of by the child and his/family.  In this way, children who are Too Comfortable in their overeating and Too Uncomfortable can both be addressed. 

The psychologists get to these underlying cognitions in creative ways - talking, acting, interviewing each other. The group is a very safe, happy environment for campers for children to see and then overcome their past barriers to weight loss.

It is our goal to help campers develop a greater understanding of their struggle, feel good about their hard work and capitalize on their achievements.

Note that these sessions are not psycho-therapy. The camp is not equipped to handle children with significant emotional and behavioral issues that might prevent them from functioning successfully at camp. Please refer to our contract of enrollment for more
information.

Professional Staff

Melissa McCardle, L.C.S.W.  received her Master's in Social Work from New York
University. After additional training in psychotherapy for eating disorders and Dialectical Behavior Therapy, Ms. McCardle went on to focus in the area of obesity. She planned and developed the Center for Weight Management of the North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System where she has served as Senior Administrative Manager and Cognitive Behavior Therapist since its opening. Ms. McCardle is a professor in the Hunter College School of Social Work and is in private practice.

Eileen Rosendahl, Ph.D. received her doctorate in Clinical Psychology from Northwestern University.  She began her career helping adults and children lose weight at Northwestern University Medical Center's "PAR" weight management program in Chicago. 

Dr. Rosendahl went on to develop a weight management program for Long Island Jewish Medical Center in New York and served as the Clinical Supervisor for the Center for Weight Management for the North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System.  Dr. Rosendahl is in private practice.

Emily Klass, Ph.D. received her doctorate in Clinical Psychology from Fordham University.  She has worked with children overcoming obstacles for 15 years at Schneider Children's Hospital at the North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System. She established the Shapedown (TM) program at the NYU Child Study Center in Manhattan. Dr. Klass is in private practice and an adjunct professor in Health Psychology at Ferkauf School, the psychology graduate school of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine.

Rona Novick, Ph.D. is coordinator of child psychology at Zucker-Hillside Hospital of the North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System.  She serves as the clinical director of the Alliance for School Mental Health, a prevention, treatment and outreach program offering mental health training and consultation to schools and community programs.  Dr. Novick received her doctorate in clinical psychology from Rutgers University and is on the faculty of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine.

Insurance Reimbursement

There is a fee for these services that is eligible for reimbursement from your health.  If you have any questions, feel free to call Dr. Emily Klass at 516 466-2537 for further information.

Weight management assessment and counseling services can be categorized as office visits for either “mental health” or “health/medical” treatments. 
If you want to pursue the “mental health” claim call your insurer to determine the extent of the coverage for out-of-network outpatient psychological counseling/therapy.  The CPT codes (procedure codes) are 90801 (initial assessment) 90853 (group sessions) and either 90806 (45-50” individual session), 90804 (20-30” individual session).  The assessment will determine the diagnosis, but the most common diagnoses are Psychological Factors Affecting Medical Condition (316.0) and Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified (307.50).