Dr. Suzanne Chabaud of A&E Television's Hoarders to Host 2nd Leadership Summit

NEW ORLEANS, LA, June 15, 2013

A leadership group comprised of representatives of Children of Hoarders, Inc., and several adult children of hoarders from throughout the US and Canada, will join Dr. Suzanne Chabaud of the Emmy nominated TV series, Hoarders, for the 2nd Summit in New Orleans, June 19 - 24 at the OCD Institute of Greater New Orleans. The mission of the summit is to plan a conference and pioneer ways to raise awareness and innovate interventions for children in hoarded homes, and for adult children of hoarders who continue to face issues, including the stress of aging parents who still hoard.

The summit will include notable guests such as Cory Chalmers, founder of Steri-Clean, who also appears on the Hoarders series, as well as Elizabeth Nelson and Joe Cerro, from the non-profit organization, Children of Hoarders, Inc. (COH). Since its inception in early 2006, COH has reached thousands of adult children of hoarders via its chat room and message boards. Jessie Sholl, author of Dirty Secret: A Daugther Comes Clean About Her Mother's Compulsive Hoarding says, "Joining the COH group changed everything for me. Without it, I'd never have been able to write my book, nor shed the life-limiting shame I'd carried for most of my life. It would be impossible to overstate how much the group has affected and helped me."

Since the first summit, several members of the leadership group have established outreach groups in their hometowns, including Cecelia "Ceci" Garrett of Spokane, WA. Garrett and her mother, Judi, appeared in season 2 of Hoarders in a memorable episode in which Judi's home was condemned after she was found stuck in massive amounts of clutter. Inspired to help others after the first New Orleans summit, Garrett established the group, Adult Children of Hoarders, Spokane, which offers peer-to-peer recovery for adult children who grew up in hoarded home. Another member of the leadership group, Barbara Allen of Bolton, MA, published her memoir, Nice Children Stolen from Car, which details her life growing up with a parent who is a hoarder.

The June summit will focus on fundraising and planning for a large-scale, national conference with a target date set for late 2014. Inspired by her most recent presentation in April at the National Association for Professional Organizers (NAPO), Dr. Chabaud and the June summit attendees will research resources, keynote speakers and outreach groups to be included at the conference for the purposes of raising awareness of, and providing assistance to children and adults with hoarding parents. "I learned that NAPO started with five women in a living room and now consists of more than 4,000 members," says Dr. Chabaud. "I want to raise awareness and promote investment in identifying and helping the children of hoarders," she says.

About Suzanne Chabaud, Ph.D.
Suzanne Chabaud, Ph.D., is a clinical and developmental psychologist who specializes in treating OCD and Hoarding Disorder. She founded the Obsessive Compulsive Disorder Institute of Greater New Orleans (OCDIGNO) in February 2010, where clients receive comprehensive services for these disorders. She has appeared in 33 episodes of the A&E reality series, Hoarders. Appearing on an ABC 20/20 television special, she spoke about the lifetime challenges of children of hoarders whose parents rarely recover from this gripping disorder. Her research on adult children of hoarders has been the cornerstone of her outreach and community awareness initiatives.