Masters Level Psychologist - Pediatric Feeding Program

Masters Level Psychologist - Pediatric Feeding Program

Michigan Medicine's Interdisciplinary Pediatric Feeding Program is seeking a full-time Masters-level Psychologist to join our growing team. This hybrid program (in-person and virtual) provides coordinated, interdisciplinary care to some of the most medically complex pediatric cases, including infants and children with feeding tubes and those diagnosed with Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder (ARFID).

This is an exciting opportunity to be part of an innovative, interdisciplinary feeding program that is transforming care for infants and young children with feeding challenges. Our hybrid model increases access to specialized services while providing families with early intervention and ongoing support.

We deeply value partnership and collaboration, recognizing that open communication and strong relationships are essential to high-quality care. Our team prioritizes mutual respect, mental health and well-being both for the families we serve and for our colleagues. We foster a supportive environment where team members are encouraged to share ideas, learn from each other, and grow professionally.

You will have opportunities to engage in research and quality improvement projects, expand treatment services for toddlers and older children with ARFID, and work in a team that values holistic, developmentally appropriate, and compassionate feeding care. Additionally, this position offers a chance to develop group-based interventions, collaborate with pediatricians, and train other professionals, further expanding the reach and impact of feeding care.

Our program uses a holistic approach that integrates physiological, developmental, psychosocial, and behavioral factors to prevent and address feeding disorders. It is staffed by feeding psychologists, registered dietitians (RD), speech-language pathologists (SLP), occupational therapists (OT), a pediatrician and a gastroenterology nurse practitioner to provide close, coordinated care and address all aspects that impact feeding. Our largest referral stream consists of infants discharged from the hospital with feeding tubes, and we provide close, coordinated outpatient follow-up starting within one week of discharge.

This allows for proactive, preventative care and oral feeding progression when developmentally and medically appropriate. Instead of using structured, protocolized, consequence-based feeding interventions, we rely heavily on principles classical conditioning to establish and protect a strong foundational relationship with each aspect of oral feeding. This approach minimizes the need for more intensive intervention and supports a natural, stepwise progression in feeding skills.

It enables children to reach their full feeding potential in a manner that is sustained long-term.

This proactive, preventative and holistic approach has produced exemplary outcomes and has successfully transitioned medically complex infants and young children off of their tubes to full oral feeds earlier than anticipated, even in populations known to have high rates of long‑term tube dependence. This has resulted in significant expansion of our program and referral stream.

The core responsibilities of this position are twofold.

• The provider will staff the clinic that treats infants born prematurely and with less medical complexity who are discharged from the hospital with a feeding tube. The provider will provide care alongside a RD and an OT or SLP, to support safe and developmentally appropriate feeding progression. This person in this role will take the lead on case conceptualization, preventing oral aversion by monitoring factors that impact the infant's experience when eating including physiological comfort, hunger, stress, and psychosocial factors, and will collaborate with medical providers to identify and address physiological barriers to oral feeding progression (e.g., discomfort from reflux or constipation).
• This position will expand feeding treatment for toddlers and older children with Avoidant Restrictive Food Intake Disorder (ARFID), using a whole‑child and…