Our Children and Young People (CYP) Hospital @ Home eating disorders team has recently completed two days of foundation training in Non-Violent Resistance (NVR). This is to build on the support we offer to parents and carers of children and young people with complex needs.
The training took place last month and was delivered by Partnership Projects. NVR is a family-based therapeutic approach that can help when behaviours become harmful, high risk or hard to manage.
This training is part of a wider piece of work to improve the support we offer to parents and carers using our service. It adds to the team’s skills when helping families where there may be more than one type of risk, for example self-harm, aggression at home, or health risks linked to restrictive eating.
NVR can be used in different ways depending on what a family needs. This can include learning practical ways to reduce conflict and de-escalate difficult situations, building a wider support network, and helping parents and carers increase their calm, consistent presence at home. It can also include coaching in positive, non-violent actions that help families feel more confident and supported.
A parent’s perspective
One parent who was supporting her son in inpatient care, reflected on their experience of NVR alongside family-based treatment for anorexia nervosa (FT-AN), saying:
‘Helping your child recover from an eating disorder (ED) becomes a job. You need to go on training to do that job, and you need a toolbox . . . they all interlink like a jigsaw puzzle. . . So if you only had FT-AN, some pieces are missing, but when you do NVR as well, the tools go into that jigsaw puzzle, and it all becomes one big picture. . . When different scenarios arise you can pick the tools you need for that particular task. You can use the tools side by side, or one after the other… I don’t think our recovery would have moved as fast if I hadn’t have done both. It would be like painting and decorating, but you only have a roller and no paintbrush.’ (Burnham, Brain – NVR feeds an eating disorder programme).
How this helps
By developing our knowledge of NVR, we aim to offer parents and carers more choice in the support available, alongside the evidence-based treatments already provided by our service.
Quote shared with permission. Source: Burnham, Brain – ‘NVR feeds an eating disorder programme’.
