Community Eating Disorders Service for Children and Young People (CEDS-CYP)

This service is for children and young people aged 5 to 17 years and 9 months who live in Brent, Harrow, Hillingdon, Kensington and Chelsea, and Westminster.

We accept referrals from GPs, other healthcare professionals, schools and colleges.

Please complete and send the referral form by email using a secure email address. You can download the referral form using this link: Download a referral form for professionals

If you are unsure whether we are a suitable service for you, please speak to a duty clinician who will be able to advise you. You can call us on 020 7685 6620.

Once we have received the referral, we call you as soon as possible to understand your situation and organise an assessment. The assessment normally takes about 90 minutes which include a physical health check. After the assessment, there will be a short break where the clinician(s) will discuss your situation with the multi-disciplinary team to establish if our service is suitable to meet your needs. A care plan will be formulated and shared with you after the assessment break. Please ensure that you set aside at least 3 hours for the entire assessment.

We provide a well-integrated treatment package that includes psychological, family, nutritional, medical support for children and young people, and their family. The treatment package is designed to help you to restore your mental and physical health. We also offer consultation and work closely with other professionals such as schools, GP surgeries and to anyone involved in a child’s or young person’s network.

We offer eating disorder focused Family Therapy (FT) as this has been consistently found to be the most effective first line treatment for AN and BN in children and young people.  Research has shown that families are a great resource and essential to the recovery of children or young people with an eating disorder. Therefore, it is crucial that families are involved in the treatment where possible. We also run a six-session online parent group to support parents. This group runs weekly on a rolling basis, so parents are able to join anytime as soon as their child is under the care of the service. In some circumstances when FT is not indicated or does not fit with the child or young person’s needs, other avenues such as individual focused therapy may be explored.

We provide integrated nutritional, medical and psychological care for people with severe eating disorders, such as anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa and other eating disorders.

We are a multi-disciplinary team, meaning we have clinicians with many core training in mental health, and we all have specialist training in treating young people with eating disorders and their families.

All members of the team are trained in Family Based Treatment (FBT) for eating disorders and offer this alongside their own specific therapeutic specialities.  Psychotherapists and psychologists specifically offer individual therapies, and family therapists usually see the family together.

We are open from Monday to Friday, from 9am to 5pm. We are closed on bank holidays.