Consumer Co-Design with Young People with a Lived Experience of an Eating Disorder
Tracks
Norfolk Hall
| Monday, March 20, 2023 |
| 12:15 PM - 12:35 PM |
Overview
Jeremy Kerr, QUT & Sarah Pflanz, CHQ
Speaker
Jeremy Kerr
Senior Lecturer/Researcher
Queensland University of Technology (QUT).
Consumer Co-Design with Young People with a Lived Experience of an Eating Disorder
Abstract
There has been an increasing trend in demand for services for young people with an eating disorder for many years. This trend was amplified by COVID-19 impacts in 2020, creating unprecedented levels of demand that was unable to be immediately accommodated by existing services at Children’s Health Queensland (CHQ). In response to this, the Eating Disorders Steering Committee was established and a program of work undertaken to understand how CHQ could improve what we had to offer these young people, their families and the staff who work tirelessly in this area. This co-design work is part of the larger reform initiative. CHQ is committed to learning from those who use its services and is interested in working in partnership with industry experts in developing a toolkit or framework to foster this opportunity to work with young people with lived experience to deliver effective service improvement. The project engages co-design and participatory design methods to utilise the perspective and insight of young people to generate strategies for the development of media, services and designs to assist young people in their treatment and recovery from an eating disorder. The project investigates the current experience of services supporting young people with eating disorders, and how we can design resources and approaches to support them for as positive experiences as possible. It consists of two sequential workshops and a follow-up asynchronous co-design activity. In the workshops, participants will co-create characters – or personas – that represent young people and describe what services the characters might use and the types of positive and sometimes negative experiences they may have using them. Participants will then explore, through further creative co-design methods, the ways these characters can be better supported, producing a series of prototypes and recommendations for future low-cost implementation.
Biography
Jeremy Kerr is an academic and researcher in the School of Design at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT). His research focus is the exploration and development of design and design frameworks to advance community capacity building and self-advocacy. Central to his work is applying and innovating co-design methodologies to foster collaboration and to include the authentic voice and creative input of stakeholders in the development of solutions to complex problems. His work has involved co-design collaborations with the Autism CRC, the Centre for Childhood Nutrition Research, Children’s Health Queensland Hospital and Health Service (CHQ), Bravehearts and CARE International.
Sarah Pflanz
Advanced Social Worker
Children's Health Queensland (CHQ)
Consumer Co-Design with Young People with a Lived Experience of an Eating Disorder
Abstract
There has been an increasing trend in demand for services for young people with an eating disorder for many years. This trend was amplified by COVID-19 impacts in 2020, creating unprecedented levels of demand that was unable to be immediately accommodated by existing services at Children’s Health Queensland (CHQ). In response to this, the Eating Disorders Steering Committee was established and a program of work undertaken to understand how CHQ could improve what we had to offer these young people, their families and the staff who work tirelessly in this area. This co-design work is part of the larger reform initiative. CHQ is committed to learning from those who use its services and is interested in working in partnership with industry experts in developing a toolkit or framework to foster this opportunity to work with young people with lived experience to deliver effective service improvement. The project engages co-design and participatory design methods to utilise the perspective and insight of young people to generate strategies for the development of media, services and designs to assist young people in their treatment and recovery from an eating disorder. The project investigates the current experience of services supporting young people with eating disorders, and how we can design resources and approaches to support them for as positive experiences as possible. It consists of two sequential workshops and a follow-up asynchronous co-design activity. In the workshops, participants will co-create characters – or personas – that represent young people and describe what services the characters might use and the types of positive and sometimes negative experiences they may have using them. Participants will then explore, through further creative co-design methods, the ways these characters can be better supported, producing a series of prototypes and recommendations for future low-cost implementation.
Biography
Dr Tania Withington is a Social Worker and Family Therapist in the role of Program Manager of the Children’s Health Queensland, Child and Youth Mental Health Service, Eating Disorder Program. Dr Withington is the co-lead in the development, implementation, evaluation and design of the Eating Disorder Program which is a large state-wide service offering evidenced based services and evidenced informing innovation for children and young people with eating disorders and their families. The Model of Service developed by Dr Withington places emphasis on evidenced based treatment with every clinician supported to achieve accreditation status as Family Based Treatment for Anorexia Nervosa (FBT) clinician and/or supervisor or Cognitive Behaviour Therapy enhanced (CBTe) senior clinician status as core skills. Dr Withington led the development, trial and ultimate embedding of the first evidenced based treatment telehealth service for eating disorders in Queensland, offering FBT and CBTe in regional rural and remote areas of Queensland since 2016. In 2020 Dr Withington led the development and implementation of the first public health available state-wide Day Program for children and adolescents diagnosed with eating disorders in Queensland with FBT and Emotional Focused Skills Training (EFST) as core intervention. In 2020 Dr Withington led the design and implementation of a longitudinal mixed method research project investigating efficient and effective treatment services for children and young people with eating disorders and their families incorporating current evidenced based treatments and innovative treatment options including an online psycho-education series for parents as preparation for treatment, a parent EFST treatment group, Day Program, and Attachment Based Family Therapy for eating disorders. Dr Withington herself is an accredited FBT Clinician and Supervisor with the Training Institute for Child and Adolescent Eating Disorders USA and has co-written FBT training with the Institute for the Australian context. Dr Withington co-chaired the ANZAED Child and Youth Treatment Special Interest Group in 2018-2019. More recently Dr Withington has been invited to join the Australian Eating Disorders Research & Translation Centre Governing Council and the National Eating Disorder Collaboration National Strategy Treatment Working Group. Dr Withington has presented at national and international conferences and published in peer review publications in the areas of eating disorders, child and youth mental health, child protection and aged care. Looking forward Dr Withington’s interests are directed to timely effective and innovative service delivery utilizing evidenced based, evidence informed and evidence informing models of service and care to promote recovery in children and young people with mental health concerns and their families.
