“This December marks ten years since Pip McManus died by suicide in 2015. She was just 15 years old, and had spent her last three years fighting anorexia nervosa, malnutrition, depression and self-harm. Pip’s dream was to support those suffering from similar conditions, so her family founded Pip’s Place – determined that “no-one else has to go through what Pip, and our family and friends went through.”
Over the past decade, Pip’s legacy has transformed lives. Pip’s Place Online launched in 2021, providing peer-led support and recovery-focused guidance. Then in 2023, when First Steps ED and Talk ED joined forces, we created Pip’s Place: Next Steps – a guided self-help group specifically for people with severe and enduring eating disorders, some of whom are still in active treatment, but most have been stepped down or discharged from specialist clinical care.
I’ve been facilitating Pip’s Place: Next Steps sessions for two years now. Some people joining the group have been discharged from care after years of illness and multiple admissions to inpatient services – often because clinical teams believe there’s nothing more they can do. But discharge doesn’t always mean recovery. Sadly, it can mean being sent home, still unwell, with nowhere to turn for ongoing support. Every other Tuesday, we provide a safe space where people with long-standing eating disorders can access professional support, connect with others who truly understand, and find hope.
The most crucial thing about these sessions is that we have created of a community of people who understand each other. We are a collaborative team and the people who attend this group support each other as much as we as the professionals do. One of our attendees describes recovery as a “little flame” and we discuss this often; because what we have found is that the members of the group keep those flames burning by adding light to each other, encouraging each other’s recoveries. This community that we have created is pretty magical like that.
It’s a truly collaborative space where people share tips on what has helped their recovery, their wins, their struggles, and even their frustrations about gaps in care, or times when it has seemed that services have not understood or simply disregarded them. In this group we say, “I hear you, I understand you and I believe you can recover…now what’s your next step?”. We have a wonderful online focus board where people share helpful resources such as books, podcasts, quotes, poems, or even art each week.
Pip’s Place: Next Steps is a special community, providing a lifeline of support for those who often feel like they have nowhere else to turn. This December, help us honour Pip’s memory by ensuring no-one else falls through the gaps in care. Help us turn a decade of hope into a future where everyone with a severe and enduring eating disorder gets the specialist support they need and deserve. Because recovery isn’t just possible, we see it every day. By supporting our Christmas campaign this year you can help us keep those little flames burning.”