Family and caregiver support
Support for families and other caregivers is central to the treatment approach at Newmarket House. Caregivers often play a key role in a person’s recovery from their eating disorder and they also have their own needs. At Newmarket House we have a dedicated Carer and Family Lead who supports caregivers in both these areas, drawing from twenty years of experience working with patients with eating disorders and their caregivers and incorporating principles and strategies from treatment approaches such as the New Maudsley Method and Emotion-Focused Family Therapy.
Caregivers are essential members of the team at Newmarket House. They help us understand patients from a family's perspective, they provide important reflections about their home and developmental context, they can support and advocate for their loved ones through the often challenging process of recovery and they can help foster patients’ increasing autonomy while providing a secure foundation of love and support. Caregivers also provide valuable feedback on the service and contribute to service development projects.
At the same time, we understand that caring for someone with an eating disorder comes with a unique set of circumstances and challenges and acknowledge the immense strain eating disorders can place on all involved. Caregivers frequently describe feeling uncertain of how they can help or overwhelmed by worry. Especially in the case of adult services, they may feel excluded from their loved one’s treatment. These pressures can lead to feelings of isolation, helplessness and loss. Often caregivers benefit from help in understanding this complex and confusing illness, emotional support, guidance in recognising and managing their reactions and skills training to empower them within their caregiving role.
Our Carer and Family Lead offers regular one-to-one support to caregivers throughout their loved one’s admission. She is available to meet caregivers in-person, by telephone or video call and can also provide help via email. Patients may not wish for certain information about their treatment to be shared and they have a right to privacy. However, in keeping with the principles of Common Sense Confidentiality, we recognise that all caregivers are entitled to be listened to, to share information they feel may be helpful and to receive their own support. We explain to patients the value of sharing information with caregivers to support them in their caring role, and if information cannot be shared we explain to caregivers the reasons for this.
Caregivers are also encouraged to attend our regular group support sessions and skills workshops (delivered both in-person and virtually). The support groups provide a confidential space to share experiences, thoughts, successes and challenges and to gain support from other caregivers and the Carer & Family Lead. The skills workshops aim to deepen understanding of eating disorders and their impact on families and to provide tools to help tackle the challenges confronted by caregivers when supporting someone struggling with an eating disorder. They also offer a supportive environment to increase caregiver confidence in applying and practising skills that can promote their loved one’s recovery, both during their admission to Newmarket House and following discharge. Where indicated, our Carer and Family Lead also offers Multi-Family Therapy, an intensive treatment giving several families the opportunity to come together to share their experiences, learn and practise applying new skills to support recovery.
In conjunction with these forms of support, family therapy is available to all patients and their caregivers. This provides a forum for families to move the treatment focus away from the patient and their eating disorder to other, broader themes with which they may want help.
The different therapeutic interventions available to caregivers and process for supporting them during patients’ admissions to Newmarket House are summarised in the diagram below.
Thank you for providing me with the learning opportunities, guidance and counselling and the tools to manage the effects of this dreadful illness on my lovely daughter.
