We are a specialist team who work with young people and their families/carers when they are struggling with eating difficulties and/or an eating disorder.
We all come from different backgrounds and skills and our team is made up of:
We also work closely with:
How do access the services?
If you or someone else feels you need support with your eating difficulties, your GP, social worker, school nurse, paediatrician or a teacher from your school can refer you to our team. Somebody from our team will look at the referral to see if we can offer you the help you need. Sometimes there are other services that may be more helpful to you and we will write you a letter and let you know. If we think you need our help we will invite you to a specialist eating disorder assessment.
What do we do?
We work closely with SpeED at the North Wales Adolescent Service and join them for assessments. We also carry out assessments ourselves in your local area depending on what your needs are.
What is an assessment?
An assessment is an opportunity for us to talk together with you and your family to understand what you are struggling with at the moment and to get to know you all. In this way we can work out together what might be the most helpful things we can do to support you. We might ask you about your interests and hobbies, family life, friendships, school and things that matter to you as well as how long you have been struggling with any eating difficulties and how you understand these. We will ask you to complete some questionnaires to help us understand what you and your family think. The assessment may also include physical health checks such as blood pressure, weight and height measurements.
If the assessment is in your local area, it will take a couple of hours to complete. The assessment will include your family/carers and we find it helpful if all parents/carers and other family members can attend for the assessment if this is helpful.
From the assessments, we will work together to develop a plan that may include signposting to other services, individual therapy options, meal planning or food advice, support with school, college and/or work and family work.
Safety Planning
At the beginning of our work together, it may be necessary to complete a safety plan with yourself and your parents/carers. The safety plan may include ideas for:
What are the problems we work with?
This can be diagnosed eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa and complex arfid or eating difficulties in the context of other mental health diagnosis or problems.
What happens in treatment?
The treatment plan we create at your assessment will depend on how we understand your eating difficulties and the impact these have on your physical health. You will be offered appointments and these will take place either in your local CAMHS or at home depending on your needs.
How often we see you will also depend on your physical and mental health needs and the support your family/carers need to look after you. To begin with this will be at least once a week and we will continue to make sure that the plan is meeting yours and your families/carers needs and will adjust it as we need to but this will always be discussed with you.
During your appointments, you may see different people from our team for example, a dietician make talk to you about meal plans or an occupational therapist may talk about support with school. Our family based interventions help to support your parents/carers to support you at a tricky time but this will always be considering what is best for you.
During the course of your treatment, it may be necessary to continue completing physical checks regularly which could include our SpeED colleagues in the hub.
We use different resources in the sessions including self-help guides, videos, art and crafts and things you can take away to do in-between sessions.
Who will be at my appointment and can I bring something with me?
We encourage you to bring your family with you as they can be central to supporting you in your recovery. You can also bring a sibling or other supportive person like a grandparent with you if they are part of your support network and it would help us to understand your eating difficulties more. We know that assessments and appointments can be stressful and it can be helpful to bring an object like a distraction toy with you if you feel it would be helpful.