Casework Service

Are you (or someone you know) struggling to access the eating disorder support or treatment you need? We might be able to help.

We have an advocacy service that offers different types of support. This page refers to our casework service, but we also have a letter-writing service and a politician advisory service.

When people try to access treatment, there are lots of different clinical guidelines that say what this treatment and information should look like. Sometimes, these guidelines aren’t followed because of pressures on services, or because there isn’t enough understanding of eating disorders.

If you’ve been denied the right treatment or information we’ll listen to your experience, and work with you to find out if and where the guidelines have not been followed. We will work with you one-to-one basis to help challenge this decision. This is to help you get the support and information the guidelines say you should be receiving.

You can read more about some common decisions that we hear about from our service users and have worked with to challenge to ensure they get the support and information they deserve.

What can we do to help?

Our main aim is to make sure that everybody who tries to access treatment for their eating disorder can get this treatment, and that families and friends get the right information and support too. To achieve this, we can work with you in two ways:

1. We can coach you to challenge a decision yourself. We start by helping you understand the relevant guidelines. Then we give you advice on what you can do next. For example, we can help you prepare for an appointment about your care and give you some written information on the guidelines. Or, we might help you draft a letter that you can share with the people involved in your treatment.
2. We can challenge the decision on your behalf. We typically do this by directly contacting the people involved in your treatment. We do this a non-confrontational way, which means we look for ways to work together. We will discuss what’s happened, and what the guidelines say should happen. We will make a request for a decision in line with these guidelines. We will keep you updated at all stages and will not make this request without your permission.

Or, depending on what you want to do, we might use a combination of the above options.

We know you might have already had to share your story many times with different professionals, so we always try to make sure you don’t have to tell us more than once.

Who can access the casework service?

To access this service:

• You must be aged 16 or over. If you are under 16, we can support a parent, carer or loved one aged 16 or over to act on your behalf.
• You are currently seeking support for anorexia, bulimia, binge eating disorder, OSFED (other specified feeding or eating disorder), or T1DE (Type 1 diabetes and disordered eating). To view the different types of eating disorder, head to our 'Type of eating disorder' page.
• You must live in Scotland.

We are working towards offering this service to everyone who might need it and review this criteria regularly. If you are not eligible for the casework service, we do have other ways in which we can help you. Click here for details on other parts of our advocacy service, or please do contact our Helpline for advice and guidance.

Sometimes a decision that is in line with guidelines might feel like the wrong one, and that could be because it hasn’t been fully explained to you. In these cases, we can help you in asking for more clarity and information from the clinician or service that made the decision.

How can I access the casework service?

If you have read the above and are wanting to receive support from our casework service, please fill out our referral form.

Or, you can contact our Helpline by calling us, using our one-to-one webchat or by email. When you contact us, ask to be referred to the service. The Helpline is open from Monday-Friday from 3pm-8pm and will be happy to help.