What does weight-inclusive social work practice look like?

Weight stigma, or the pervasive structural and interpersonal practices that mark larger bodies as 'undesirable, deviant, or inferior' (Mercedes and Kriete, 2023:6), has a significant negative impact on people's physical, psychological, economic and social wellbeing (Puhl and Heuer, 2009; O'Hara and Taylor, 2018; Brown et al., 2022). There is limited research on weight stigma in social work, or how it affects the people we work with. An enhanced understanding of overt and unconscious weight stigma in social work practice, like other forms of discrimination, is crucial to countering stigma and improving the care experience of people with larger bodies. A weight-inclusive framework for practice will reduce weight stigma in social work practice, reduce or delay the development of further needs and improve outcomes for people with larger bodies. Aim and Research Questions This research aims to develop a framework for weight-inclusive social work practice. The research questions are: What does weight-inclusive social work practice look like? What are the attitudes and experiences that social workers hold regarding people with larger bodies? How do people with larger bodies experience social work interventions? What recommendations do people with larger bodies have for social work practice? Methods The proposed research uses a mixed-methods approach with two phases of data collection. In the first phase a mixed-methods survey will be used to investigate the attitudes of social workers towards people with larger bodies. Descriptive statistics and bivariate analysis will be produced from the quantitative data. Qualitative data will be thematically analysed and used to produce questions for the interview phase. This will focus the interview on practice issues identified by practitioners, enabling production of data that meets practice needs as well as those of people with larger bodies. In the second phase, 30 interviews will be completed with people with larger bodies who have experienced a social work intervention from adult social care services. The interviews will be thematically analysed before data from both phases are synthesised to form the basis of a weight-inclusive framework for practice. The research will be trauma-informed and guided by an ethics of care. A steering group of disabled people with larger bodies has collaborated on the proposal and will continue to collaborate on the decision making, dissemination and impact throughout the course of the project. Timeline for delivery September 2025 - August 2028 Impact and dissemination During the Fellowship I intend to produce articles for sector media and present at conferences, as well as engaging the general public and people with larger bodies through social media. Working collaboratively with my steering group I will develop and deliver training on the weight-inclusive framework and deliver it to local authorities and universities, as well as a shortened version as part of Social Work England's 'Social Work Week'. We will produce a plain English summary of the findings and a self-advocacy tool for people with larger bodies. We will present to two conferences about the findings and our collaboration. I will publish a peer-reviewed journal article on the research findings.