Eating Disorder Awareness Week 2026: Community at the Heart of New Services
This Eating Disorder Awareness Week (23rd February – 1st March) highlights the theme of Community. It reminds us that recovery from eating disorders happens with support from friends, family, and wider networks.
To mark the week, Toucan, the West Midlands CAMHS Provider Collaborative, is raising awareness of two new services designed to help young people receive specialist care in the community. These include Eating Disorder Intensive Support at Home (ED-ISH)* and Eating Disorder Day Care**.
Both services, which are commissioned by Toucan, aim to prevent mental health inpatient admissions by offering care and support closer to home. This helps young people remain near their families or carers, schools and support networks during recovery.
About the services:
• Eating Disorder Day Care: Intensive support at a specialist daytime facility for 13 - 18-year-olds, providing structured meals, therapy, education, and monitoring when more support and structure are needed than what can be provided at home.
• ED-ISH: Intensive support delivered in the young person’s own home and school, offering meal support, therapy, and family coaching to avoid hospital admission or reduce length of stay.
Dr Andrea Biro, Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist at Toucan, said:
“Providing care in the least restrictive environment, where young people feel safe and supported is often a key step in recovery.
“It’s also important that young people and those with lived experience are involved in shaping these services. When we support young people to engage with care and build strong support networks around them, we strengthen their recovery journey.”
Recently, the Toucan Coproduction Team supported a visit to the Staffordshire Eating Disorder Day Care service, led by Midlands Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust’s Children and Young People's Mental Health Participation Team. They were accompanied by young people with lived experience of an eating disorder.
During the visit, attendees were able to provide feedback on key areas including living spaces, dining areas, outdoor spaces and games rooms.
The visit helped create a welcoming, homely environment, making it easier for young people to engage with the support available.
Molly Dowling, Expert by Experience at Toucan, said:
“It was a brilliant opportunity to build stronger connections with our partners and to support them in ensuring young people were at the core of shaping the new Eating Disorder Day Care designs and decor. The young people were able to give input into what they felt would support recovery and allow the space to be accessible for those who may use it.
“This was a great example of how working collaboratively and including lived experience in design processes can lead to impactful and innovative ideas, helping to create services that truly meet the needs of the young people they are for.”
More information will be shared about these new services on the Toucan website in Spring/Summer 2026.
*ED-ISH launching Summer 2026 in Herefordshire & Worcestershire and Coventry & Warwickshire.
*Eating Disorder Day Care to be launched at The Bridge in Staffordshire (Midlands Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust) by May 2026. Another centre will be launched in Coventry later this year.