{"id":65927,"date":"2025-06-03T17:07:26","date_gmt":"2025-06-03T16:07:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.elysiumhealthcare.co.uk\/education\/?p=65927"},"modified":"2025-07-25T17:02:16","modified_gmt":"2025-07-25T16:02:16","slug":"co-produced-meal-support-at-rhodes-wood-hospital-working-together-with-young-people","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/v18jrwq856m.c.updraftclone.com\/education\/co-produced-meal-support-at-rhodes-wood-hospital-working-together-with-young-people\/","title":{"rendered":"Co-produced Meal Support: Working Together with Young People at Rhodes Wood Hospital"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mealtimes are known to be a period of heightened distress for individuals with eating disorders. They often experience an increase in negative emotions, which can include fear, anxiety, frustration, anger and sadness. These emotions can lead to certain avoidance behaviours such as hiding food, avoiding eating certain foods and not wanting to eat with others (Harvey et al., 2002; Levinson et al.\u20092018; Long et al.\u20092012; Monaghan & Doyle 2023). This combination of emotional and behavioural responses to mealtimes makes getting the appropriate amount of nutrition each day very challenging.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Therefore, it is essential for personalised meal support to be offered as part of eating disorder treatment, especially within an inpatient setting for individuals with acute needs. Meal support can create a structured and supportive environment to help an individual navigate their meals and re-establish normal eating behaviours (Hage et al,. 2017).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

However, a recent systemic review of meal support interventions by Ellis et al (2024) highlighted that there was no consistent approach on how to best support an individual during mealtimes. The review, which was published in Eating Disorders Journal<\/em>, concluded that due to the absence of a standardised framework, a co-designed approach, complete with training and evaluation, could yield the best results for patients.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Clinicians at Rhodes Wood Hospital in Hatfield<\/strong><\/a> also came to this conclusion after they received feedback from the young people who use the service on how they would like the consistency of mealtime support to be improved. In this CYPMHS EveryExpert<\/em> article, we speak with Vincent Cheung, Hospital Director, on how the multidisciplinary team (MDT) and service users co-produced meal support training and guidance at Rhodes Wood.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Co-produced meal support at Rhodes Wood<\/strong><\/p>\n

Rhodes Wood Hospital, part of Elysium Healthcare\u2019s CYPMHS division<\/strong><\/a>, is a specialist inpatient eating disorder service for children and young people aged 8-18 years. The MDT provides an evidence-based inpatient treatment programme within a warm and nurturing environment, focusing on moderate to severe eating disorders. An Ofsted-registered school<\/strong><\/a> is also available onsite to enable the young people to continue their schooling while in treatment<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Vincent describes how, during a ward community meeting, the young people explained ways in which they would like the meal support experience to be improved.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Vincent says: \u201cThe young people shared with us that, although some of the team were really good with meal support, there were inconsistencies that they wanted to change. For example, during some mealtimes, there was very little talking, and some were even in silence. We have conversation cards that could be used, but there were times when they were not.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“In general, the feedback highlighted that if there was a standardised approach to delivering the support, in a way that was personalised and meaningful, the mealtime experience would be better. So we decided to do something about it, working together with the young people, to understand exactly what they considered to be \u2018good\u2019 mealtime support, and then co-produce training with them for the wider team.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

What does good meal support look like?<\/strong><\/p>\n

During the following ward community meeting, the co-production training development idea was presented and received well by attendees. Several young people agreed to participate, and decided that training should take a role-play format. Attendees also discussed what is important in meal support and created a list of \u2018dos\u2019 and \u2018don\u2019ts\u2019 that were used to inform the training. The young people also wrote down on paper what good meal support looks like from their perspective.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Here is a selection of their comments:<\/p>\n