FREED (First episode Rapid Early intervention for Eating Disorders) is a world-leading NHS treatment approach focused on early intervention in eating disorders in 16 to 25-year-olds. It was launched in 2014 by a group of clinicians from South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust and King’s College London. It’s pioneering approach is designed to give young people rapid access to specialised treatment and support tailored to their needs – and to give healthcare professionals the training, skills and patient resources to support this.
Since 2018 we’ve partnered with FREED to help develop and scale their service to reach as many young people and professionals as possible. And to date their impact is huge…
More than 2430
young people
treated
Adopted in
all 54 eligible
NHS Trusts & internationally
Saved the NHS
an estimated
£10.9 million
“Without the website and online training that Fruitful designed and built, this growth and reach (on a national scale) in only four years would not have been possible.”
Building a brighter, more purposeful brand and website
We began with a complete rebrand and fresh new digital presence to up the energy and grow this amazing service. Emphasising the need for early intervention in positive and proactive way to inspire help, support and freedom.
We ran workshops with FREED and their audiences to get our heads around their hows?, whats? and whys? when it comes to accessing FREED. This showed us that their two primary types of people (patients/carers and healthcare professionals) have very different online needs.
Young people browse mainly on mobile and we learned that they (or their loved ones) usually begin with fact-finding research to validate their concerns about eating. They may not be ready to seek help but they have lots of questions.
The site guides people through a simple clinically directed Q&A module with the reassuring advice and friendly faces of FREED team members. Each question is answered with explanations, inspiring quotes, real life stories, self help tools and next steps – enabling them to stay in their comfort zone and find help quickly.
For healthcare professionals the site is an information hub providing easy access to everything they need to quickly understand the science, structure and benefits of FREED and to share helpful resources with patients. These free-to-use resources aim to give users entry level access to support and motivate them to register for the professional training, toolkit and community to adopt the FREED model.
“It was a pleasure to work with Fruitful. Despite our team being London-based, they kept us up-to-date throughout the website design & build process, as well as who our different target audiences would be. They helped us develop a new brand look, logo and resources to match. The end result is a website that we love. It performs above and beyond our initial hopes and is easy for us to manage - we’ve even received positive feedback from the young people we work with. Thank you!”
Designing digital tools to keep up the pace
With FREED adoption in all 54 eligible NHS Trusts and adopters in the US, Canada, Australia and more, there is a need to unite their colleagues and develop commercial opportunities. We’ve designed and built FREED Community – a forum to connect their network and strengthen the FREED model to improve care for those with eating disorders.
FREED-M is a digital tool for young people with eating disorders to help them make up their minds about help-seeking. It’s a modular intervention with resources, help and guidance about food and mood. We’ve remixed the FREED logo to create a connected identity with it’s own a vibrant attitude, and designed and built a smart, robust mobile app to facilitate the screening, learning and assessment of FREED-M participants.
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