Eating Disorders Awareness Week 2010 will be from 22nd Feb to 26th Feb.

 This event is held every year and is run by beat (Eating Disorders Association). beat organises a variety of events to raise awareness as do beat volunteers around the country. For details of  planned events in your area, visit
www.b-eat.co.uk/Events/EatingDisordersAwarenessWeek
2007 saw the re-branding of the Eating Disorder association to beat, and the publication of a major new report “Something’s Got To Change”

2008 focused on the plight of families and saw the publication of a report "Failing Families"

National Carers Week

 run by the Carers Week Consortium will be held from 14 -20 June 2010. The theme is "A life of my own" and will highlight the difficulties many carers face in have their own life outside the caring role. Carers Week annual survey is now well-established as the largest annual survey of carers experiences and opinions
For more details visit www.carersweek.org
 

1. NEW PROJECT for 2009 - KING'S COLLEGE LONDON

M a l e   V o l u n t e e r   R e q u e s t

Males with or without an Eating Disorder

We are looking for MALE volunteers WITH OR WITHOUT AN EATING DISORDER to participate in ongoing research in the Eating Disorder Unit, King’s College London. That would involve completing questionnaires, simple computer-based games, and talking to us about eating disorders.

If you are aged between 16 and 65, you could help us to better understand the way people feel, think, and respond to their environment, the causes of an eating disorder, and you could support us to improve the treatment. 

 Please contact Liz Goddard (elizabeth.goddard@iop.kcl.ac.uk / 020 71 88 0190) or Izzy Ortega (izaskun.ortegamentxaka@kcl.ac.uk / 020 71 88 0170) or both by post: Dept Academic Psychiatry, King’s College London, 5^th Floor Bermondsey Wing, Guy’s Hospital, London, SE1 9RT)

1. Beat: New Online Recovery Club for Young People with Eating Disorders

Are you aged between 14-25 and need help with your eating disorder? If you are looking to initiate the recovery process and feel that you would like support with this, beat the leading UK charity for people with eating disorders is launching an exciting new online Recovery Club service. The monthly club will run for six months enabling young people to benefit from the support of their peers and to feel comfortable discussing their concerns and fears about treatment and the recovery process.The Recovery Club service will offer online peer support to young people with eating disorders through a monthly facilitated club. Each club will have a theme to enable service users to discuss different issues and aspects of eating disorders and the recovery process with the support of a beat team member and a guest facilitator.  The club will begin this November and an application to access this service will be going live on Tuesday 28^th October 2008 on the For Young People section of the beat website http://www.b-eat.co.uk/YoungPeople/Home Whilst we are only able to offer this service to a limited number of people, we do hope that if this pilot is successful it will be more widely available in the future.  We are also hoping to develop our existing recovery information on our website to aid people unable to access the recovery club service.  We have posted a questionnaire on the recovery section of the beat website to ascertain what resources service users feel would benefit them with the recovery process.  To take part in the questionnaire please follow the link: http://www.b-eat.co.uk/YoungPeople/Recovery/HaveyourSay If you would like any further information about the Recovery Club, please email j.armitage@b-eat.co.uk

2. Males recovering from eating disorders

 A study is currently being undertaken into males recovering from an eating disorder. This involves talking to a researcher about your experiences in an e-mail interview. The researcher is a trainee clinical psychologist at one of the leading UK universities, and she has recovered from anorexia and bulimia. The study needs several more male participants (over the age of 16). You do not have to be fully recovered to participate but should be past the worst point of your eating disorder. The information from the study will be useful for both clinicians and families faced with male eating disorders. If you can help please e-mail woodx1.545@btinternet.com