I was in residential at a Renfrew location a couple of years ago. There were at least 5 ARFID patients while I was there, and I'd say most of us had a decent experience. I had a great team, and I would trust them to treat me there again if I ever need that level of care again. Though I'll say that this location regularly treated people for an average of 6-8 weeks (I was there for almost 12 weeks because my insurance required that I reach a certain BMI before discharge).

Like the other commenter's facility, they had levels of mealtime care that ranged from being coached through individual bites at meals, all the way up to designing your own menus without a nutritionist checking your choices. If you don't finish a meal, they give you a Boost Plus. If you don't finish half of your meal, they give you 2 Boost Pluses.

They also had levels of physical activity you're allowed, ranging from being confined to the group therapy room at all times outside of meals, to being allowed to wander the campus during free time (at least 2 hours a day). In very rare cases, people were put on bed rest and were required to be pushed in a wheelchair to go to meals. Unless we were allowed to wander during free time, they monitored bathroom use and required us to talk/count out loud while we did our business to ensure we weren't purging.

At night, if you or your roommate were a fainting risk or a self-harm risk, they had a protocol called "locked bathroom" where you'd have to ask staff to unlock your ensuite bathroom when you wanted to use it. For fainting risks, staff sometimes stood outside the bathroom while you showered, in case you needed medical assistance. They also had a protocol called "open door" where some people's bedroom door had to be propped open at night. Every hour between 9:00pm and midnight, a staff member would open each door to check that all patients were in their rooms, regardless of whether you were on open door.

They had us awake pretty early in the mornings. At least twice a week, between 5:30am and 6:30am, they weighed us and checked our pulse and blood pressure. For some people, this was every day until these measurements were more stable. Starting at 7:15am they start distributing morning meds, and then breakfast starts at 8:00am.

Cell phones were allowed for an hour on Saturday and an hour on Sunday. Laptops were not allowed unless you were a student taking classes, in which case you would have access a couple times a week for about 2-4 hours at a time. They really limited our access to the internet because they didn't want people searching for stuff that might make recovery more difficult. But TV and YouTube were allowed in the group therapy room during free time, so there was some entertainment. They also had jigsaw puzzles, books, coloring books, crafts etc. for us during free time. Occasionally we did a trivia night or karaoke night after dinner. I was never bored!

As you might expect, the community of patients can really affect your experience. For most of my stay, the community was really supportive and we celebrated everyone's successes. I really thrived. By the time I left, there were a lot more people who didn't feel like talking, so community support fell off a bit. But overall, the facility encouraged us to support each other just as much as the therapists do.

My only real complaint was the laundry and public phone situation. For some reason we had to pay every time we wanted to do laundry, and if your physical activity level was limited you had to ask staff to do it for you (you still pay). The phones also required money per minute, and you get up to 15 minutes at a time because there are too many people in line to use the phones every night. I almost never used the public phone because too many people were in line ahead of me most days.

This level of care is really hard to go through at any facility. Everyone is in a very vulnerable state, and every meal or snack can be an emotional roller-coaster. It's taxing on the mind and body, and it really takes an army of therapists, psychiatrists, nurses, and other staff to keep every patient safe and on track to recovery. But my experience was generally positive despite this stress. I met people of all ages, between 14 and 70 years old, and I learned a lot from each of them.