Background:
Children and Young people with eating disorders can sometimes experience restrictive practices as part of their care. This might include things like physical restraint, enforced feeding or restrictions on movement. These approaches are usually used to try to keep people safe, but they can also be frightening, upsetting and difficult to process for young people, families and staff.
At the moment, there isn’t much research that brings together people’s real experience of these practices in children and young people’s eating disorder care. We don’t always understand how they feel for those involved, how decisions are made or what might help reduce their use but still keep people safe. In order to find out more we are working with the University of Cumbria and colleagues as part of a funded project to change things by making sure lived experience is central to the research.
This Project:
This project is about understanding how restrictive practices are used in eating disorder care for children and young people, and what these experiences are like for the people affected. We want to learn from young people, parents and staff about what helps, what causes harm and what could be done differently.
The advisory group will be involved all the way through the project. Members will be asked to share their views on the focus of the research, comment on the way things are worded, look at existing research in this area, help us make sense of ongoing findings and how we can use the results to make a change. The group will help us make sure any of the things we write about that come out of the project are clear, respectful and useful.
Your views are important because having lived experience helps people think of things that researchers or practitioners might not. What you share in the group will feed directly into the project. Your views will help guide how the research develops, how we write about what we find and what changes we suggest for the future.
Role description:
Benefits of taking part:
Who are we looking for?
We are looking for 15 people with either lived experience of an eating disorder or caring for a loved one with an eating disorder.
For those with lived experience, we are looking for 5 individuals aged 16-25, with experience of restrictive practice.
For those with experience caring for someone, we are looking for 10 individuals above the age of 18, with experience of supporting someone who has experienced restrictive practice.
All participants must be based in the UK and meet our wellbeing criteria below:
We want to make sure that our advisory boards are fully representative of the diverse communities across the U.K., and so we are particularly keen to hear from people who identify with any of the following:
As with all our work, we are also committed to representing the full range of eating disorders, including those ‘lesser known’. This includes anyone who may not have a formal diagnosis, and inclusive of both long- and short-term eating disorder experiences.
Meetings:
For those with lived experience of an eating disorder, you would meet on a 1:1 basis three times a year.
For those with experience caring for someone with an eating disorder, you would meet with fellow members as part of a group of 10 people. There will be 3 meetings per year.
All meetings will be held between July 2026 and Feb 2029 and conducted via Zoom/Teams.
Beat staff will facilitate meetings and there will also be dedicated staff available to provide any support needed. Beat staff will also be available for support before and after meetings.
The University of Cumbria and Beat want to acknowledge the valuable expertise those with lived experience will bring to this project, so all board members will be paid for the time they contribute. Payment for participation in sessions will be £27.50 per hour in line with the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) benchmark: https://www.nihr.ac.uk/documents/payment-guidance-for-members-of-the-public-considering-involvement-in-research/27372#citizens-advice-bureau-cab
Want to Take Part?
If you would like to become a member on this project, we would like to invite you to join us at an online information session.
Our information session will be a chance for you to find out more about the advisory board, what will be involved, support available, meet staff members you would be working with and ask any questions you may have!
We will be having our online information session on:
To register for an information session please complete our sign-up form:
Beat & Cumbria Information Session Form – Fill in form
If you cannot attend an information session but would like to know more about the project, please contact Beat’s Co-Production team at coproduction@beateatingdisorders.org.uk.