The latest episode of the AZ Big Podcast with Michael & Amy has officially dropped. Episode 160 features Jaclyn Pederson, CEO of Feeding Matters, and Bucky Slomski, shareholder at Burch & Cracchiolo and board member for Feeding Matters, who talk Feeding Matters.
Listen to more of the AZ Big Podcast here.
Transcript:
Michael Gossie
Welcome to the AZ Big Podcast, sponsored by Burch & Cracchiolo. I'm Michael Gossie, Editor-in-Chief at AZ Big Media, and I'm joined by my co-host, our publisher, Amy Lindsey. Today we're super excited.Amy Lindsey
It's hard to say my name this morning. It was tough.Michael Gossie
Today we're super excited to be joined in the studio by Jaclyn Pederson, CEO of Feeding Matters, and Bucky Slomski from Burch & Cracchiolo, who's also an Executive Board Member at Feeding Matters. Jaclyn, great to see you.Amy Lindsey
Thanks for having me.Michael Gossie
And Bucky, great to have you back. Good morning.Amy Lindsey
Thank you both for joining us this morning. So let's start off, Jaclyn, can you explain to us what is Feeding Matters?Jaclyn Pederson
Sure. So Feeding Matters is a national nonprofit headquartered here in Arizona with an international reach, and we are a patient advocacy organization for children with pediatric feeding disorders. So oftentimes people think of this as picky eating or children that have severe medical complications, but it's a real condition that just doesn't get the awareness and attention that it deserves, and so we're here for parents and we're here for the professionals too.How serious a problem is that? It's way more prevalent than people realize. So it's more prevalent than autism, more prevalent than cerebral palsy.
Michael Gossie
Is that right?Jaclyn Pederson
It is. It's more than 1 in 37 children under the age of 5 annually have PFD, and more than 3 in 5 children with a chronic health condition have PFD as well. Over 300 conditions make you at risk for PFD.Michael Gossie
Wow. So Bucky, we've had you on the podcast before, we're talking about your legal practice at Burch & Cracchiolo, but how did you get involved with Feeding Matters?Bucky Slomski
Sure. So I was born and raised in Phoenix, Arizona. I've been here my entire life other than going to Ohio State for college.Michael Gossie
Go Buckeyes.Amy Lindsey
Yes, go Buckeyes.Bucky Slomski
That afforded me the opportunity to go to Brophy College Prep, and one of the ideals at Brophy is what they call men for others, and during my time I had the opportunity to volunteer both locally and across the country, including New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, and that really instilled those values in me. And after I got my footing after college and law school with my career, I wanted to give back to the community, and one of my friends was involved in Feeding Matters from Xavier, excuse me, the sister school to Brophy. That opened the door for me, and I really can't imagine a better opportunity than helping out the most innocent and vulnerable in our community, which is children.Amy Lindsey
That's fantastic.Michael Gossie
So Jaclyn, I've still got three girls at home, all of them are picky eaters, so how confusing is it figuring out if somebody has a pediatric feeding disorder or if they're just a picky eater?Jaclyn Pederson
It is one of the biggest challenges because we are so comfortable calling it picky eating, and there definitely is a toddler phase where picky eating comes into play, but these are very serious conditions that as a child develops and they're learning their skills to eat, and they're learning their psychosocial and their psychological relationship with food, that changes over time. If it's trauma after trauma or poor experience after poor experience from when you're an infant, it's gonna be that much worse as a toddler, and it'll be that much worse as you get older, especially if we're not identifying it.Michael Gossie
So how do you identify it?Jaclyn Pederson
So we have a six questionnaire screener that has been shown to identify and tease out what's kind of typical feeding and what may be a need for looking further, but I will say a lot of it comes down to education and outreach and awareness. I mean, so oftentimes people use the term picky eating, even though it is pediatric feeding disorder, and so that is a myth that perpetuates this problem that affects it from getting connected. And yeah, so one of the biggest challenges that Bucky just reminded me of was it wasn't even called pediatric feeding disorder, so Feeding Matters was the center organization that led the effort for creating the diagnostic code pediatric feeding disorder.We advocated to the CDC, we got the experts together to say this is a real medical condition, and now it is something that physicians can actually diagnose and have a code for, and that makes a world of a difference as it relates to identification.
Amy Lindsey
So can you explain how Feeding Matters works with educators and research to advance the understanding of pediatric feeding disorders?Jaclyn Pederson
Yeah, we started originally, we were founded by Shannon Goldwater, and she had her own experience of triplets that struggled to eat, and as much as she needed the emotional support to raise them, she went around the country realizing that professionals don't really have access to this information, and there's not a lot of research in this field too. So if we're gonna uphold our mission as a nonprofit, we need to be able to be there for families at the center of our organization, but also lead the way as it relates to the research and education as well. So we do a lot of thought leadership, we do a lot of consensus meetings and facilitation, bringing experts together from all over the world to share what needs to happen in this field.Michael Gossie
So can I ask, like, if pediatric feeding disorder isn't addressed and managed, what can be some of the consequences?Jaclyn Pederson
There are a lot of long-term development consequences, so not only is it impacting your psychological relationship with food and how you show up, we've had adults that share their experiences from when they're a child, and it has gone on to affect their entire career. We are used to doing business meetings at lunches, we are used to having food at our meetings, but the adults that we've heard share about their traumatic experiences early on of not getting identified, they've had to choose a different career because they can't do some of the things that are typical in business. From a child's perspective, you know, when you're learning to eat and you're having a good relationship with your parents and you're picking up Cheerios, those are all building blocks for how you're going to pick up a pencil in kindergarten, and any interaction and disruption in that process leads to long-term consequences, medical and physical, but also psychological.Michael Gossie
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Contact them today at bcattorneys.com. That's bcattorneys.com. So Jaclyn, can you talk a little bit about the power of two?
Jaclyn Pederson
That is the core to our organization. You know, when Jaclyn first started, she found other parents to talk to and to have a relationship with to do better in this scenario and be better for herself, too, and showing up for herself for her own self-care. And so our power of two program connects new parents with parents who are volunteers and go through the training and learn more about PFD, access to providers and information that they're available, that are out there and can be shared with families.And so we just connect families and make it a little bit easier because oftentimes families are calling us that they've had grandparents tell them, oh I'll get I'll get them to eat, leave them with me for a weekend, or have you tried chocolate? And it's not the case. Children with PFD will not eat.
Michael Gossie
Is there anything that can be done?Jaclyn Pederson
Early identification is key, so you prevent some of that psychological development. As the research continues, we'll get better at identifying it and better at identifying treatment, but it's a hugely complex problem because it didn't have a name, it didn't have a code, and so when something doesn't have that, it doesn't have the credibility or the validity it needs to be educated in medical school to have an educational specialty pathway for graduate students and therapists. So there's a lot of work that we still have to do.Amy Lindsey
How are we doing in the healthcare world of understanding and helping to diagnose it?Jaclyn Pederson
I think we're getting there. We definitely have a long way to go, though. There still is a lack of a specialty in qualifications for professionals who treat this, and so it really depends on who you find as a professional to treat it, and then the awareness of it is still very slim.Michael Gossie
You know, I love the whole Power of Two concept. How important is it to parents having that kind of support system built in for them?Jaclyn Pederson
Hugely important, especially to find someone that you can relate to that knows where you've been because they've been hearing from everyone different tips and tricks and follow this Instagram account and have you tried this, but this is devastating and it brings families to their knees and has a huge emotional toll on the whole family experience and the family dynamics. That being able to talk with someone and brainstorm how to even advocate to a doctor that doesn't know about it, how that could impact their long-term trajectory.Michael Gossie
Bucky, how important is it to get business leaders involved with feeding matters and other organizations that are similar?Bucky Slomski
It's very important, especially in Arizona, which is where feeding matters started. You know, that's how you really broaden the approach, get the funding for things that we need, and really help out kids. And I want to run back to the ICD-10 code quickly.That's a huge step for PFD because now insurance will pay for that diagnosis. The CDC can track the number.
Michael Gossie
Wow, that's major.Bucky Slomski
It's absolutely huge.Amy Lindsey
That's a game-changer to truly make a difference.Bucky Slomski
Because previously, it wasn't diagnosed and parents might have to pay out-of-pocket. Now insurance can cover that diagnosis, and we can actually track the prevalence of it as well. So allowing businesses into this space provides the ability to do things like get the ICD-10 code to help out all of these children and parents.Michael Gossie
So, Jaclyn, I know feeding matters, you're an international organization now, right?Jaclyn Pederson
Yeah, we're headquartered here in Arizona. We consider our scope kind of national, but we do set the stage for the international community. And so what we say about PFD is what goes for the whole world.Michael Gossie
That's fantastic. So what's your approach to partnerships to kind of benefit both the local and national communities?Jaclyn Pederson
It's a balance that is tricky for us. We care deeply about the Arizona community here, and so we focus on the system as it relates to how can we support screening for PFD, how can we support that early identification. But then you get further into the system here and you realize there's not qualified professionals.We need to look at the national associations. And so we work with the national associations. And then you realize, oh, there's not a name for this.
There's not a code for this. How can we make sure that that's happening for the entire world? And so it's just a tricky balance that we play.
I will say that companies like Birch and Cracchiolo help significantly in our impact and assisting with our reach. But we do balance what are our national efforts, what are international efforts, and how can we still support Arizona in the backyard that we have. And we also do that through events, like our Feed the Cause event is coming up on November 7th that will support this work.
Amy Lindsey
Having insurance companies identify it and recognize it has to be a huge milestone.Jaclyn Pederson
It is. And that's why the code was the foundation for that. And because it's a severe financial impact and toll on families, especially, you know, they're trying different things, they're trying different therapies.And if you don't even have a name for it, you're just running up a bill. And so we do try to encourage insurance companies to know more about this because we have a code and we're getting there. And we just have to do a little bit more education in partnership with them.
Michael Gossie
So how do parents know when they need to reach out for help?Jaclyn Pederson
The biggest thing I share with parents is to trust your gut. I think so often we are struggling silently and we're trying to maybe talk to our physician or pediatrician or family practice doctor that something is wrong and sometimes we're not heard. And that's the case for a lot of families that have children with PFD.And so I think it's really important to trust your gut, to know that you know your child best, that if mealtimes are so stressful for you, if you remember a history of continuous feeding problems, we've got to look at that. We need to see if there's something medical going on, how feeding skills are looking, what the nutrition looks like, and what the psychosocial side of this disorder looks like.
Michael Gossie
Bucky, what would you like people in the community to know about feeding matters that they might not know?Bucky Slomski
Well, I think the biggest thing is that it's a locally based organization started by the Goldwaters who have very deep roots in Arizona.Amy Lindsey
A name well known in Arizona, yes.Bucky Slomski
And it's just a really good cause. It's ran very well operationally from a standpoint from our CEO all the way down to volunteers. Everyone is contributing in a great way to benefit our community in Arizona and get greater reach than that.So I think it's sort of a grassroots approach that has a lot of impact.
Jaclyn Pederson
So how can people learn more about feeding matters? The biggest thing I think is to follow us on social media, feeding matters is our handle. But if you are worried about a child or someone that you know, our website, www.feedingmatters.org, it has a family roadmap that walks you through. Like, I need to get help. I'm worried. What are the steps that I need to follow to figure out the problem?And you also mentioned an event coming up. Yes, we have our Feed the Cause event. It's at Papago Golf Club.
And it's a fundraiser to support this organization, not only what we're doing here in Arizona, but how we're setting the stage and building the research and education that will impact this long term.
Michael Gossie
Well, Jaclyn Peterson, CEO of Feeding Matters, such an amazing organization doing such great work. So, so deeply, deeply needed too. And Bucky Slomski, executive board member of Feeding Matters.Thank you so much for being here. Thank you for listening to the AZ Big Podcast with Michael and Amy. For the latest and greatest business, real estate and lifestyle news, check out the all new azbigmedia.com.
Once again, thank you to our sponsors, Burch & Cracchiolo, and thank you to Jaclyn Peterson and Bucky Slomski from Feeding Matters. Make sure you check out their event, November 7th.
Jaclyn Pederson
Thank you so much.Michael Gossie
Thank you.