On this page is a series of #SpecialistSpotlights. We shared these profiles across our social media pages; Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn for Feeding Tube Awareness Week 2023 to acknowledge their work and highlight research in the area of tube feeding.
We thank these specialists for their dedication and for helping to raise awareness and understanding about tube feeding among health professionals and the community at large.
We thank these specialists for their dedication and for helping to raise awareness and understanding about tube feeding among health professionals and the community at large.
Carly Veness
Principal Speech Pathologist, Babble & Munch Feeding Therapy
Senior Speech Pathologist, The Royal Women’s Hospital, Melbourne
Carly Veness is a Certified Practising Speech Pathologist and International Board Certified Lactation Consultant (IBCLC) with a special focus on infant and child feeding difficulties. Carly graduated with a Bachelor of Speech Pathology with Honours from La Trobe University in 2003 and a Graduate Diploma of Mental Health Sciences (Infant & Parent) from the University of Melbourne in 2009.
Over the past 19 years, Carly has worked in a variety of public, private and not-for-profit settings in Melbourne, in both clinical and research roles. These have included previous positions at the Royal Children’s Hospital, Northern Health, Vision Australia and the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute. She has also worked as an Infant Mental Health Clinician at Alfred CYMHS. Carly currently holds a public appointment at the Royal Women’s Hospital in the Neonatal Intensive and Special Care Unit.
In 2014, Carly founded the private practice, Babble & Munch Speech Pathology (now, Babble & Munch Feeding Therapy), in order to develop a team service focusing on the specific and underserviced area of infant and paediatric feeding and swallowing difficulties. Through this practice and her own personal experiences as a parent, Carly developed a particular interest in supporting babies and children with gastrointestinal conditions and discomfort leading to feed refusal and aversions, swallowing difficulties, growth faltering, tube feeding, and the resulting impact on the feeding relationship and parent-child interactions. Carly and her team include various approaches in their therapy for infants and children with feeding difficulties, including responsive feeding therapy, infant mental health frameworks, trauma-informed practice and oral sensory motor therapies. Developing and supporting positive, trust-based relationships around feeding, for both oral and tube feeding, is at the centre of Carly's focus.
Carly is active in teaching, training and mentoring other health professionals and has been an invited speaker at conferences and training programs for medical, allied health and dental professionals. Carly is also founder of Babble & Munch Learning, an international training and professional support program for health professionals working in paediatric feeding.
In 2021, Carly gave a talk for ausEE and the Free From and Allergy Virtual Show on Feeding Difficulties in Eosinophilic Gastrointestinal Disorders that can be viewed here.
For more details on Carly’s private practice for families and training programs for health professionals can be found on her website here.
Queensland Children’s Hospital - Multidisciplinary Feeding Team
Claire Reilly
Kristie Bell
Maryanne Syrmis
Nadine Frekeriksen
We are a multidisciplinary feeding team based at the Queensland Children’s Hospital. The aim of our research is to improve the management of children with temporary feeding tubes. Our research has found that the management of children with temporary feeding tubes can be variable and tube exit planning is a valuable resource that improves care. We continue to publish and present our research hoping to change clinical practice.
Our current publications include:Paediatric tube-feeding: An agenda for care improvement and researchWeaning children from temporary tube feeding: Staff survey of knowledge and practices Temporary feeding tube dependency in pediatric patients: A retrospective analysis of risk factors and preventative practicesCharacterisation of information Hospitals Provide Parents on Tube Feeding, Including Tube WeaningCharacterisation of hospital-produced guidelines regarding management of temporary tube feeding care in general paediatric patientsA natural history of temporary tube feeding care at a children's hospital: A prospective audit of medical records
Emily Lively
Speech Pathologist, Lively Eaters, Adelaide
Emily has worked within paediatric Speech Pathology since 2000. Over the last 19 years she has specialised in infant and paediatric feeding difficulties, working at both hospital and community clinic settings in country South Australia, the United Kingdom and metropolitan Adelaide. Emily is the Founding Director of Lively Eaters - a truly interdisciplinary centre that specialises in children with eating and drinking difficulties. She has extensive experience working with non-oral children (tube fed), children with ASD and developmental delays and complex feeding relationships. Emily and her team of Occupational Therapists, Speech Pathologists, Dietitians, Infant Mental Health therapists and paediatrician support children both Australia-wide and internationally to develop more functional and enjoyable mealtime and feeding skills.
She is currently completing a PhD exploring enteral tube feeding dependency and tube weaning - international practices, factors influencing success and parents’ experiences. Emily's research focuses on providing a deeper understanding of the challenges experienced by tube-fed children, their caregivers and the health professionals supporting them. Her aim is that dissemination of this research based information to both parents and health professionals, will contribute to improved tube feeding and weaning experiences for all involved.
Emily has published peer reviewed papers on international approaches to tube weaning, predictive clinical factors for successful tube weaning and the lived experience of parents as they support their tube fed child to learn to eat and drink. In her role as a clinician-researcher Emily has peer reviewed many feeding related research articles. She provides regular training workshops to parents and health professionals, has lectured in Paediatric Feeding at Flinders University and the University of Queensland and has presented at a range of national and international conferences.
Emily is a co-founder of WHOLE Enteral – an Australian made wholefood formulated meal-replacement tube feeding formula. The first product, Enrich, was launched into the market in 2022 and has been rewarding and fulfilling to improve daily mealtimes for tube-fed adults and children. She is excited at the next products soon to be offered. Emily strongly believes feeding on its own cannot be assessed or addressed without looking at the complex interaction between the environment, behaviour, medical, sensory, motor, emotional and developmental skills of a child and their greater family. It is from this family-focused foundation that she continues to be moved by the dedication of the families she works with and the life-changing mealtime improvements that families strive so hard to achieve. Connect with Emily Lively through Lively Eaters. Find out more about WHOLE Enteral here.
During last year’s FTAW 2022 Virtual Education Program, Emily Lively, presented on her research and experience in weaning children from tube feeding, discussing international practises, factors influencing success and parents' experiences. You can watch the video recording here.
Emily has published peer reviewed papers on international approaches to tube weaning, predictive clinical factors for successful tube weaning and the lived experience of parents as they support their tube fed child to learn to eat and drink. In her role as a clinician-researcher Emily has peer reviewed many feeding related research articles. She provides regular training workshops to parents and health professionals, has lectured in Paediatric Feeding at Flinders University and the University of Queensland and has presented at a range of national and international conferences.
Emily is a co-founder of WHOLE Enteral – an Australian made wholefood formulated meal-replacement tube feeding formula. The first product, Enrich, was launched into the market in 2022 and has been rewarding and fulfilling to improve daily mealtimes for tube-fed adults and children. She is excited at the next products soon to be offered. Emily strongly believes feeding on its own cannot be assessed or addressed without looking at the complex interaction between the environment, behaviour, medical, sensory, motor, emotional and developmental skills of a child and their greater family. It is from this family-focused foundation that she continues to be moved by the dedication of the families she works with and the life-changing mealtime improvements that families strive so hard to achieve. Connect with Emily Lively through Lively Eaters. Find out more about WHOLE Enteral here.
During last year’s FTAW 2022 Virtual Education Program, Emily Lively, presented on her research and experience in weaning children from tube feeding, discussing international practises, factors influencing success and parents' experiences. You can watch the video recording here.
Dr Sarah Leadley
Registered Psychologist and Behaviour Analyst, Auckland, New Zealand
Dr Sarah Leadley is a Registered Psychologist and Behaviour Analyst (BCBA). For over 15 years, she has provided behavioural services in homes and schools for children and young people with and without disabilities. Sarah is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Auckland and supervises students training in psychology (Behaviour analysis). Sarah’s research currently focuses on providing intensive home-based interventions to children with tube dependency (Ready to Eat study), with funding from the NZ Health Research Council. Sarah is also a mother to two young children who keep her super busy!
Connect with Dr Sarah Leadley through All You Can Eat.
Find tube feeding information and resources from KidsHealth here.
Dr Tessa Taylor
Clinical Psychologist and Behaviour Analyst, Sydney
After completing her predoctoral internship and postdoctoral fellowship at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine/Kennedy Krieger Institute, Dr. Tessa Taylor remained on as a faculty in the Pediatric Feeding Disorders Program. This programme is the original and largest, and one of the few interdisciplinary behaviour-analytic programmes of its kind; treating the most severe and complex children from all over the world.
Dr. Taylor’s highly specialised and unique training and expertise in paediatric feeding disorders and severe problem behaviour grants her the ability to diagnose and treat the full spectrum of complexity and severity of feeding difficulties. She founded Paediatric Feeding International in 2015.
Dr. Taylor is a Doctoral-level Board Certified Behavior Analyst (BCBA-D). She obtained her Master’s degree in 2001 and her PhD in clinical psychology in 2010 from Louisiana State University, USA. She is a registered clinical psychologist in Australia and a former licensed clinical psychologist in the USA. She is a board approved supervisor for both behaviour analysis and psychology.
She has authored over 50 peer-reviewed research publications and 3 book chapters, and has 60 professional presentations and posters internationally (USA, Australia, Japan, Italy, France, Greece, Maldives, Ireland, New Zealand, Sri Lanka, Philippines). She served as the Consortium Initiative Coordinator for the Association for Behavior Analysis International’s (ABAI) Pediatric Feeding Disorders Special Interest Group. Dr. Taylor was the President of the Association for Behaviour Analysis Australia (ABA Australia).
She is an Adjunct Senior Fellow at the University of Canterbury | Te Whare Wānanga o Waitaha, Christchurch, New Zealand in the Department of Psychology, Speech & Hearing | Te Kura Mahi ā-Hirikapo and School of Health Sciences | Te Kura Mātai Hauora.Dr. Taylor has nearly 25 years of experience spanning a variety of ages (from toddlers to older adults), settings (homes, schools, group homes, developmental centres, hospitals, outpatient clinics), conditions (e.g., complex neurological, medical, and genetic conditions), and interdisciplinary team coordination areas (psychiatry, paediatrics, gastroenterology, allergy, dietetics, social work, speech therapy, occupational therapy, child life, education). For over 5 years, Dr. Taylor worked solely on intensive (e.g., 8 week hospitalisations) applied behaviour-analytic feeding treatment in a hospital setting with children ages 1 to 12 with a wide variety of complex developmental and medical diagnoses and concerns (e.g., autism, cerebral palsy, allergies, prematurity, Down syndrome, glycogen storage disease, tube dependence). She also provided services in the developmental playroom for outside of meal concerns (e.g., sleep, toileting, compliance, rumination, pica, aggression) and increasing adaptive skills (communication, social skills), and ran a parent training group. Dr. Taylor supervised therapists, master’s level behaviour analysis students, predoctoral interns, postdoctoral fellows, and provisional psychologists, and conducted both group and single-subject research. She has exceptionally strong research skills, particularly in methodology and statistical design and analysis, and in both group and single-case experimental designs and has provided consulting on statistics and grants for physicians and behaviour analysts. Connect with Dr Tessa Taylor through Paediatric Feeding International. A recent article by Dr Tessa Taylor was published in Behavior Modification Journal titled ‘Development of Medication Administration Protocols for In-Home Pediatric Feeding Cases’.
She has authored over 50 peer-reviewed research publications and 3 book chapters, and has 60 professional presentations and posters internationally (USA, Australia, Japan, Italy, France, Greece, Maldives, Ireland, New Zealand, Sri Lanka, Philippines). She served as the Consortium Initiative Coordinator for the Association for Behavior Analysis International’s (ABAI) Pediatric Feeding Disorders Special Interest Group. Dr. Taylor was the President of the Association for Behaviour Analysis Australia (ABA Australia).
She is an Adjunct Senior Fellow at the University of Canterbury | Te Whare Wānanga o Waitaha, Christchurch, New Zealand in the Department of Psychology, Speech & Hearing | Te Kura Mahi ā-Hirikapo and School of Health Sciences | Te Kura Mātai Hauora.Dr. Taylor has nearly 25 years of experience spanning a variety of ages (from toddlers to older adults), settings (homes, schools, group homes, developmental centres, hospitals, outpatient clinics), conditions (e.g., complex neurological, medical, and genetic conditions), and interdisciplinary team coordination areas (psychiatry, paediatrics, gastroenterology, allergy, dietetics, social work, speech therapy, occupational therapy, child life, education). For over 5 years, Dr. Taylor worked solely on intensive (e.g., 8 week hospitalisations) applied behaviour-analytic feeding treatment in a hospital setting with children ages 1 to 12 with a wide variety of complex developmental and medical diagnoses and concerns (e.g., autism, cerebral palsy, allergies, prematurity, Down syndrome, glycogen storage disease, tube dependence). She also provided services in the developmental playroom for outside of meal concerns (e.g., sleep, toileting, compliance, rumination, pica, aggression) and increasing adaptive skills (communication, social skills), and ran a parent training group. Dr. Taylor supervised therapists, master’s level behaviour analysis students, predoctoral interns, postdoctoral fellows, and provisional psychologists, and conducted both group and single-subject research. She has exceptionally strong research skills, particularly in methodology and statistical design and analysis, and in both group and single-case experimental designs and has provided consulting on statistics and grants for physicians and behaviour analysts. Connect with Dr Tessa Taylor through Paediatric Feeding International. A recent article by Dr Tessa Taylor was published in Behavior Modification Journal titled ‘Development of Medication Administration Protocols for In-Home Pediatric Feeding Cases’.
Dr Tessa Taylor and Dr Sarah Ann Taylor (Leadley) have written this article titled ‘Paediatric Feeding’ that can be accessed here.
During last year’s FTAW 2022 Virtual Education Program, Dr Tessa Taylor and Dr Sarah Leadley presented their research on childhood feeding difficulties and experience with home-based interventions in Australia and New Zealand to help children with tube dependence learn to eat new foods and progress with feeding skills. You can watch the video recording here.
SUCCEED Child Feeding Alliance
The SUCCEED Child Feeding Alliance is a unique collaboration between researchers, families and clinicians who are passionate about helping children with feeding difficulties and their families.
A recent article from SUCCEED Child Feeding Alliance was published in Health Expectations Journal titled ‘it was that … specialist … that finally listened to us … that's probably a weird answer to what you were expecting’: Clinician and carer perspectives on brilliant feeding care.
Read more about the SUCCEED Child Feeding Alliance project ‘Supporting children with feeding difficulties to thrive’ here.
During last year’s FTAW 2022 Virtual Education Program, members of the SUCCEED Child Feeding Alliance provided a presentation introducing SUCCEED, summarising their research findings and providing some ideas to help families, carers and children who tube feed to thrive. You can watch the video recording here.
Dr Chris Elliot
Dr Chris Elliot is a General and Developmental Paediatrician. He works in a Multidisciplinary Paediatric Feeding Clinic in Sydney and is a co-founder of the SUCCEED Child Feeding Alliance. SUCCEED works with families, clinicians and researchers to create a world where all children who tube feed can thrive.
Associate Professor Ann Dadich
Associate Professor Ann Dadich is affiliated with the Western Sydney University School of Business. She is also a registered psychologist. Associate Professor Dadich has accumulated considerable expertise in health service management, notably knowledge translation – that is, the ways in which different knowledges, including research evidence and lived experiences, coalesce to promote quality care. She has a particular interest in understanding and promoting brilliant healthcare – the type of care that exceeds our expectation, brings joy and delight, and makes our hearts sing.
Dr Cathy Kaplun
Dr Kaplun is a research fellow at the Transforming early Education And Child Health (TeEACH) Research Centre, Western Sydney University. Cathy’s background includes Early Childhood Education and health services. Using strength-based and participatory approaches in her research, Cathy acknowledges the lived experiences of communities, families and children in her work and strives to create positive change by developing practical supports, practices and programs that are meaningful to those who use them. Cathy enjoys working on collaborative teams that bring researchers, health professionals, business partners and those with lived experience together. Pooling their respective skills, expertise and knowledge, the team identify what works well, what is missing and what can be improved with the aim of addressing child health and education inequities in service delivery, practices, programs and policies, so all children have the opportunity to thrive.
Professor Nick Hopwood
Dr Hopwood is Professor of Education at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) School of International Studies & Education, and Extraordinary Professor in the Department of Curriculum Studies at Stellenbosch Univeristy (South Africa). He has over a decade of experience researching services that support parents of young children and has been a co-leader of the SUCCEED Study since its inception.
Jessica Gowans
Jessica Gowans is the parent of two incredible children aged 9 and 6 who are tube-fed. Jess works as a Registered Psychologist in Sydney, Australia, with a special interest in supporting Carer Mental Health. Jess is a co-founder and coordinator of a Sydney-based Parent / Carer/ Consumer tube feeding support group and a founding member of SUCCEED Child Feeding Alliance.
Lina Breik
Advanced Accredited Practising Dietitian, Tube Dietitian, Melbourne
Lina Breik is an Advanced Accredited Practising Dietitian with a decade of clinical nutrition experience working across various hospitals in Victoria. In March 2020, she started her own private practice called Tube Dietitian aimed at bridging the gap between hospital and home for people with feeding tubes. Lina is passionate about taking the fear out of feeding tubes and helping people approach tube feeding as a the social, loving, comfortable nutrition support system that it can be.
Sign up to receive Tube Dietitian’s free PUMP e-newsletters about all things home tube feeding here.
During last year’s FTAW 2022 Virtual Education Program, Lina presented on blended tube feeding covering research, advantages, suitability, homemade and commercial blenderised tube feeds, myth busting and resources. You can watch the video recording here.
During last year’s FTAW 2022 Virtual Education Program, Lina presented on blended tube feeding covering research, advantages, suitability, homemade and commercial blenderised tube feeds, myth busting and resources. You can watch the video recording here.
Rachael Martin
Senior Paediatric Dietitian, Royal Children’s Hospital, Melbourne
Rachael Martin is a senior paediatric dietitian currently working at the Royal Children’s Hospital (RCH) in Melbourne and has extensive experience as a clinical dietitian and has worked in paediatrics for over 19 years. Rachael currently works within the RCH Complex Care Hub. This unit was developed over 7 years ago to streamline the care required by the Victoria’s most medically complex and fragile children. A large proportion of complex care hub patients require nutrition intervention, which is primarily via a feeding tube as either a supplement to oral intake or for full nutrition support. Rachael, along with her colleague Sarah James, a speech pathologist, developed a complex feeding service 5 years ago with a focus on actively tube weaning complex patients and supporting families with feeding therapy. Over the years they have successfully supported many, many children and their families to reach their goal of removing the feeding tube.
Listen to the podcast featuring Rachael and Sarah ‘Conversation with the experts: Weaning feeding tubes’ here.
Associate Professor Vincent Ho
Academic Gastroenterologist, School of Medicine, Western Sydney University, Sydney
Associate Professor Vincent Ho is an academic gastroenterologist at the School of Medicine, Western Sydney University with appointments at Campbelltown and Camden Hospitals in Sydney, Australia.
Vincent graduated from Medicine in 2002 from the University of New South Wales and went on to specialise in gastroenterology in Queensland before returning to take up a Lecturer in Medicine position at the School of Medicine, Western Sydney University in 2011.
He leads a Translational Gastroenterology Research program at the School of Medicine focusing on basic science and clinical research in the gut. Vincent has a strong passion in education of the science of the gut to health discipline audiences as well as the general public.
Vincent is the gastroenterology education content convenor for the School of Medicine, has written extensively for The Conversation (over 8 million views) and has been interviewed on radio, television and newspapers.
He has created a successful gastroenterology YouTube channel titled the GutDr which has over 100,000 subscribers.
Vincent has a special interest in the linkage between allergic conditions and the gut, and in 2020 released a book titled “The Healthy Baby Gut Guide” which explores the interaction between kids’ allergies and the gut.
Vincent is experienced with enteral feeding and works closely with dietitians to optimise feeding for his patients.
Associate Professor Usha Krishnan
Paediatric Gastroenterologist, Sydney Children’s Hospital, Sydney
Associate Professor Usha Krishnan is a Paediatric Gastroenterologist at Sydney Children’s Hospital (SCH), Randwick, Sydney, Australia.
She is also the Director of Motility Services and the Oesophageal Atresia (OA) services at the hospital. SCH, Randwick, has the only dedicated multidisciplinary clinic for OA patients in Australia. She is also an Associate Professor in the School of Women’s and Children’s Health at University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia.
She graduated from Madras Medical College, in India and completed her speciality (Paediatrics) and sub-speciality (Paediatric Gastroenterology) training in Sydney, Australia. She is the only Australian on the steering committee of the International Network on Esophageal Atresia (INoEA). She organised the fourth international conference on OA in Sydney in 2016. She was the first author of the international guidelines on the management of gastrointestinal and nutritional complications in children with OA.
She is the lead for the INoEA multidisciplinary working Group currently involved in developing guidelines on transition for OA patients. She described the increased prevalence of Eosinophilic Esophagitis (EoE) in children with OA for the first time in literature in 2014, and since then has extensively published on the topic. Awareness and early detection of EoE in this cohort has led to a reduction in stricture incidence and improved symptoms and quality of life of OA patients. She is also on the working group for Eosinophilic Gastrointestinal Disorders of the European Society for Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition (ESPGHAN). She has received the ESPGHAN networking grant and is currently involved in an international multicentre study studying EoE in OA patients. She has also this year received a GESA grant to set up an Australian-New Zealand nationwide paediatric EoE/EGID Registry.
Dr Krishnan has extensively published in high impact journals and regularly presents in prestigious national and international conferences. She has extensive research experience in motility, aerodigestive and eosinophilic disorders including OA, EoE and GORD.
Dr Krishnan was a reviewer of the Medikidz 'Understanding Home Enteral Nutrition' comic book. She was one of the co-editors of an eBook on OA and recently published a comic book using superheroes explaining the condition for children with OA titled ‘Understanding Oesophageal Atresia’. Read the free eBook here.
During last year’s FTAW 2022 Virtual Education Program, Dr Krishnan presented on the Australasian Society of Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition (AuSPEN)’s Consensus Statement on Blended Tube Feeding which offers evidence-based guidance for clinicians managing patients who are enterally fed. You can watch the video recording here.