New Maudsley Approach

Skills Workshops for anyone Caring for a Loved One with an Eating Disorder

Caring for a loved one with an eating disorder can be exhausting, distressing and disorientating. Many carers feel they are drowning, they have tried everything and don’t know where to turn next.  

Funded by the National Health Service Workforce Training and Education, the Charlie Waller Trust has trained facilitators to be able to deliver the New Maudsley Approach carers skills workshops to parents and carers who are supporting a loved one with an eating disorder.   

Based on the New Maudsley approach, these courses have helped so many families to navigate their way through a seemingly impossible task and offer professional techniques for becoming a ‘Change Coach’ including: 

• Dealing with challenging behaviour 
• Specialised communication skills 
• Avoiding traps that may maintain the disorder 
• Supporting recovery  

The aim of the New Maudsley Model is to lower anxiety and distress in family members and to give carers communication tools, skills and techniques that help them engage their loved one to improve their self-esteem and develop the resilience to embark on change. 

The courses are broken down into five, two-hour workshops and are full of practical tips, real life scenarios and case studies.

If you would like to book a place on our upcoming New Maudsley Carer Skills Courses, please find a course below. 

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The New Maudsley Approach

The New Maudsley Approach interventions provide education, skills and the techniques to help carers adopt a supportive approach to their loved one’s eating disorder, the goal of which is to promote the following: 

• Give carers the opportunity to express concerns about the causes and effects of the illness. 
• Discuss the basic principles of behaviour change and strengthen the carers’ beliefs in their own abilities to make change possible. 
• Teach adaptive communication skills. 
• Promote respect and a unified approach within the family (or otherwise) unit.
• Learn the skills of problem solving and highlight those factors that might be aggravating the problem.
• Maximise carer skills (warmth with limits and boundaries).
• Encourage carers to look after their own physical and psychological needs. 

These courses are intended to be used as an adjunct to treatment, as opposed to a treatment in its own right.

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Collaborative Care New Maudsley Skills Workshops for Carers

The Maudsley Hospital recognises that family/carers are in a unique position to support their loved one to tackle the Eating Disorder, but are typically excluded from treatment, with the impact of EDs on family often overlooked. 

In 2010 The Maudsley Hospital, leading ED inpatient and research centre, established a series of ‘Collaborative Care’ skills training workshops based on Janet Treasure's book, to provide carers with the practical advice and support that is so often requested.  

CWT’s expert trainer Jenny Langley was involved in the pilot of these workshops in Cambridge and lead on the training of our Facilitators. 

All training workshops are based on the following book: Skills-based learning for caring for a loved one with an eating disorder:  The New Maudsley Method – Janet Treasure, Grainne Smith & Anna Crane, London: Routledge

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Supporting a child with an eating problem

If your child is experiencing difficulties with eating or has been diagnosed with an eating disorder, it can be worrying, isolating and distressing for you as a parent or carer.

Our 'supporting a child with an eating problem' resource will help you find knowledge and skills to support your child from expert mental health trainers, Jenny Langley and Ros Rea. We hope it reassures you that you are not alone and gives you hope that people do recover from an eating disorder.  

You can view the resources on our website, download it as a pdf or order a hard copy.

View supporting a child with an eating problem 

Download supporting a child with an eating problem 

Order a hard copy of supporting a child with an eating problem