An Introduction to ARFID (Avoidance Restrictive Food Intake Disorder)

Sunshine Support is an award-winning, independent SEND & ALN consultancy supporting families and professionals across England and Wales.Since 2017, we have helped over 80,000 parents, carers and professionals navigate the complexities of Special Educational Needs and Disabilities. Our work spans EHCP applications, tribunals, advocacy, school support and specialist training, all delivered with a clear focus on achieving meaningful, lasting outcomes for children and young people.We are known for combining deep legal knowledge with real-world experience, offering practical, compassionate guidance that cuts through confusion and empowers those we support. From one-to-one consultancy to large-scale training and national awareness campaigns, our mission is simple: to ensure children receive the support they are legally entitled to and genuinely need.At the heart of everything we do is a commitment to clarity, integrity and impact.When you attend a Sunshine Support event, you are not just gaining information. You are gaining the confidence, understanding and tools to take action.

SEN Support Ltd

ARFID experts Dr Gillian Harris deliver a webinar on supporting a child or young person with feeding & eating difficulties.

Sales have ended but you can watch this webinar in 4 - 6 weeks time along with hundreds of others on our Sunshine Academy  - sign up here: www.sunshine-support.org/academy

<h3>We are delighted to welcome Dr Gillian Harris to improve our understanding of ARFID - Avoidant Restrictive Food Intake Disorder.</h3><h3>Often parents and carers of children who struggle with ARFID are left without the support they need. Advice is often contradictory or unhelpful and can increase their feelings of guilt, anxiety and frustration.</h3><p><br></p><h3>This webinar is ideal for parents and professionals alike, who support a child or young person with feeding and eating difficulties.</h3><p><br></p><h3>Gillian Greville-Harris will be delivering this introductory webinar covering:</h3><p><br></p><ul><li>How children learn to like foods and why children with ARFID have difficulties with this.</li></ul><ul><li>Understanding that the rejection of foods is not the parents' fault. It is based on the child's high sensory sensitivity, fear of new foods and anxiety.</li></ul><ul><li>How to develop stress free mealtimes by addressing the child's sensory needs and anxieties.</li></ul><ul><li>Who might be able to help families and working in partnership with schools</li></ul><p><br></p><h3>As always there will be time for questions throughout the presentation.</h3><h3>Slides, references and CPD certificates will be available to attendees along with a recording to watch again for up to 30 days afterwards.</h3>

<h2>Dr Gillian Harris</h2><h3>Dr Gillian Harris (Phd, MSc, Ba, AFBPsS, C.Psychol) has carried out research into infant and child feeding behaviour and appetite regulation at the University of Birmingham, School of Psychology for the past 30 years. She was also a Consultant Paediatric Clinical Psychologist for 27 years and led a feeding clinic at The Children’s Hospital, Birmingham, where she worked with infants and children who were food averse.</h3><h3>Her specific research and clinical interest is the development of food acceptance and rejection in early infancy and early childhood, and the effect of early experience on later food preferences. She has written around 100 published papers, articles and book chapters on these areas, and been awarded multiple research grants to support her research.</h3><h3>Past research studies have led to changes in the management of nutrition in children with specific illnesses (e.g. children with c﻿ystic fibrosis) or ha﻿ve led to the development of interventions, or parent information, for children undergoing specific treatments, (e.g. desensitizing and oral stimulation for children who are tube–fed in the first year of life), or for children with Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder (ARFID).</h3><h3>She has also frequently run, or contributed to, workshops or study days for local groups of health professionals, or Special Interest Groups, both within Birmingham, nationally and internationally, in which her research findings and research models are disseminated.</h3><h3>Her publications, and invited talks, have led to changes nationally, in the assessment and treatment of children with eating problems, and in weaning practices generally.</h3><h3>Her work is frequently reported in national newspapers and magazines and television and radio.</h3><h3>A notable television programme was the BBC QED 'Food Fights' in 1994, and the most notable radio programme was BBC Woman’s Hour in November 1999. Since that time she has frequently spoken on local radio and her work has been reported in the popular press. She has contributed to, and appeared in, a Channel 4 (Aug 2002) programme on ‘Children Behaving Badly’, in which she talked about her work with children who refuse to eat. She has appeared on BBC TV ‘Fat Nation’ speaking about the psychophysiology of weaning children on to solid foods (September 2004), and spoken about children’s acceptance of vegetables on Radio 4, The Food Show, (2008). She also acted as a consultant to a TV series, presented by Sir Robert Winston, on instincts (2003).</h3><h3>An ITV documentary ‘My child won’t eat’, which centred on her work as a clinician with children with food refusal, was shown in June 2008. It attracted approximately 6 million viewers, and has been shown around the world twice, since that date.</h3><h3>She is cited in one of the most popular child care books (Raising Happy Children, Parker &amp; Stimpson, (1999, 2003), Hodder and Stoughton,) as an expert in childhood eating behaviour, and her work is frequently reported in magazines and newspapers which are directed at parents of young children.</h3><h3>Her work for the Infant and Toddler Forum has resulted in Factsheets for Health professionals and parents on childhood food acceptance and refusal which have been downloaded in their tens of thousands. Her latest Factsheet, Developmental Stages in Food Acceptance is proving similarly popular.</h3><h3>Dr Harris has now set up a training and clinical service in collaboration with Sarah Mason, one of the leading Speech and Language therapists in the field of food acceptance and refusal, and Dr Elizabeth Shea, Clinical Psychologist and specialist in autism and childhood feeding disorders. She continues with her research at the University of Birmingham, continues her work with the Infant and Toddler Forum and is a member of the National Steering Group for Childhood Feeding Disorders.</h3>

<h3>DISCLAIMER</h3><p>The views expressed in the webinar are of the presenter and not Sunshine Support as an organisation. The information detailed on this page is accurate at the time of publishing. We reserve the right to change the speaker at any time. There maybe events outside of our control that contribute to this and our intention will always be to ensure the webinar goes ahead and meets the brief as closely as possible.</p>

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