287. Interview with Community Dietitians Ellen Petrosino and Elisa England

Thought community nutrition only included WIC and food pantries? In this guest episode Community dietitians Ellen Petrosino and Elisa England, Registered Dietitian Nutritionists and the co-founders of the Nourish and Thrive Nutrition Center share insight into how they serve their communities as community dietitians!

Freebies/Resources:

FREE Revenue Reimagined Workshop: https://nourish-thrive.com/revenue

FREE 30 Day Program Runway: https://nourish-thrive.com/runway

CEUs
Community Dietitian Framework (*Eligible for 5 CPEUs): http://nourish-thrive.com/framework

Get in Touch

Email: hello@nourishthrive.info

Instagram: nourishandthrive_rdn

Facebook: Community Dietitian Framework Collective https://www.facebook.com/groups/communitydietitianframeworkcollective

Guest Bios:

Elisa became a dietitian in 2013 and started in clinical as an inpatient oncology and cardiovascular ICU dietitian at a top cardiology hospital in NJ. Elisa also worked as a corporate wellness contractor for Johnson and Johnson and Horizon BCBS of NJ. In 2015, Elisa became a provider for most major health insurance plans and started working 1:1 with patients and got her first taste of community wellness programming. When she got married in 2018, Elisa went into private practice full time.

Ellen spent more than 10 years in the not-for-profit world as a communications and fundraising professional, translating complex research into relatable stories for donors. After stepping out of her career to raise her three children, she found herself navigating the same challenges many women face—how to build healthy meals for her family,  and how to understand a changing mid-life metabolism. Those experiences inspired her to return to school to pursue an evidenced-based understanding of  food and nutrition. During her clinical rotation in her dietetic internship, she was paired with Elisa as her preceptor—a connection that would come full circle when they re-connected as colleagues building private practices. Ellen opened her private practice in 2017 and completed training in integrative and functional nutrition.

Around 2018, Ellen and Elisa reconnected and began presenting culinary nutrition programs in their local community. During COVID, they shifted to at-home private practice nutrition counseling and continued to work with community partners offering virtual nutrition programming.

When in-person work became possible again, Ellen and Elisa decided to combine forces and created the Nourish and Thrive Nutrition Center in 2022 a shared space where they could each maintain our own private practices while working together to expand access to nutrition and culinary education. They have built a strong network of local community partners who value their blend of nutrition education, hands-on culinary skill building and interactivity and have pioneered efforts to re-imagine what community nutrition programming can be for dietitians to be the go-to nutrition expert in their communities. Elisa and Ellen have created the Community Dietitian Framework, a step-by-step guide to support dietitians in creating multiple revenue streams as they build their own nutrition communities with confidence.