Lecturer in Film and Media Studies, Dr Dieter Declercq is Principal Investigator for a new pilot study, ‘Stand-up as recovery: comedy workshops for eating disorders’, with co-investigator, Dr Una Foye, King’s College London. The project has been developed in close collaboration with Dave Chawner, comedian and spokesperson of BEAT: The UK’s eating disorder charity. Dave draws from his own lived experience in the workshops, which have been co-developed developed by a team of experts in comedy and eating disorders.
The project aims to develop a stand-up comedy workshop series for eating disorder recovery. Dr Declercq shares, “The workshops are designed as fun way to develop vital recovery skills, including building confidence, making connections, and overcoming stigma. Recovery can be a very daunting prospect, so this course aims to reach demographics who we know may find it more difficult to engage with traditional recovery programmes, including men and minority groups.”
Dr Declercq along with Dave Chawner and Dr Foye have created Comedy for Coping – a six-week interactive online comedy course aimed at people with experience of an eating disorder. Alongside the course, the team will be exploring how comedy can be used to support recovery. The course is fully funded by the British Academy to help evaluate the impact of this comedy workshop on recovery and identify which specific workshop components impact on recovery.
You can find out more about Comedy for Coping on the BEAT website, and contact Jade Peters at J.H.Peters@kent.ac.uk to find out more and book a spot.