Therapist manual for delivering a parent group intervention for early onset eating disorders in children and adolescents

A Group Parenting Approach

This manual is intended as a guide for professionals in delivery of a group intervention for parents whose child is at high risk of, or who has recently developed, an eating disorder. The aim is to standardise the content and delivery of the intervention by setting out its critical components. The intervention has psycho-educational, therapeutic and peer support elements.

The programme is designed for parents in the first stages of recognition or realisation that their daughter or son may have an eating disorder, typically after an assessment by a health care professional who has validated their concerns following a comprehensive assessment.

This programme is designed for parents in these early stages of addressing an eating disorder who, through participation in the programme, will be exposed to knowledge and ideas through contact with experienced professionals and other parents in a similar situation. Its purpose is to increase confidence, through the acquisition of knowledge and skills, through provision of support, through validation and confirmation, and by offering hope.

Dr Dasha Nicholls is a Consultant Child & Adolescent Psychiatrist. She has worked at Great Ormond Street Hospital since 1995, first as a trainee psychiatrist, then a research fellow, and now as Joint Head of the Feeding and Eating Disorders, where she leads the Eating Disorders Team, Selective Eaters Clinic and contributes to the Bariatric Surgery service at UCLH. She specialises in Feeding and Eating Disorders, childhood obesity, research-practice integration

Dr Irene Yi has been a NHS consultant in child and adolescent psychiatry in Surrey (and previously North East Hampshire) since 1997. She developed one of the first community specialist eating disorders services for children and adolescents in the country, initially in West Surrey and NE Hampshire and then expanded this through the whole of the county of Surrey. She specialises in Eating Disorders including Anorexia nervosa, Bulimia nervosa and ARFID (avoidant and restrictive food intake disorders), Anxiety and Depression in children and adolescents, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.

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©Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children NHS Foundation Trust, Surrey and Borders Partnership NHS Foundation Trust and UCL Institute of Child Health