In February 2011, our younger daughter Lucy was diagnosed with severe anorexia nervosa in the emergency department of the Royal Children’s Hospital. That moment began my journey — from someone who knew nothing about eating disorders, to someone who has had the profound privilege of leading EDV for nearly seven years.
The diagnosing psychiatrist gave us four messages I have never forgotten. This is a serious and devastating illness. This was not your fault. We don’t fully understand what causes it. And you — as parents — will be essential to her recovery.
What followed over the next two years, and beyond, was extraordinary. Lucy showed a bravery and tenacity that takes my breath away still — facing her fears, challenging her thoughts, becoming the wise, insightful woman she is today. Our other daughter Elly grew into someone with rare clarity about relationships, and a kindness that is simply part of who she is. For Rob and me, it was a test of everything — and we passed it together. I am very proud of our family.
A former social work student once said something to me I have never forgotten: recovery from an eating disorder is a radical act.
She was right. It happens in an ecosystem that bombards us daily with commentary on our shape, weight and size — where what we eat and how we exercise has become a moral standard. Society doesn’t just fail to protect people from this illness. It actively endorses it.
To witness anyone in our community engage in that radical act — to claim back a peaceful, not-tortured relationship with food, body and movement — is genuinely inspiring. And to see the courage of families and carers doing the often counter-intuitive work of supporting their loved ones? That has nourished my belief in what we are all capable of when we have the right support.
All of this has shaped my time at EDV. I have never seen lived experience as evidence of fragility. I see it as evidence of strength. If you have survived an eating disorder, or cared for someone who has — you are strong. That lens drives innovation, it drives risk-taking, and it creates services that actually hit the spot for the people who need them most.
Nowhere was this more evident than during COVID — which arrived just months after I joined EDV. We truly did pivot — and not just from in-person to online. We stood up an entirely new suite of programs and services, many of them in a matter of weeks, for a community disproportionately hit by the uncertainties of that time.
I have never been more proud of a team. People working from home, kids in the background, delivering life-changing services to people in crisis. We expanded dramatically. Many who joined us then are still here — and that tells you everything about what EDV is.
I want to thank every team at EDV — without listing every name, though every single one deserves to be spoken.
To the Hub and Help-seeking and Support team — I stand in awe of the calm, knowledgeable presence you bring to people at their most vulnerable. Lives are genuinely changed by your work.
To our Carer Coaches, past and present — you transform people’s readiness and confidence to do one of the hardest things imaginable: support a loved one through an eating disorder. Thank you all, for everything you’ve contributed to that program.
To the Lived Experience team — being supported by someone who has been there, and come through, is irreplaceable. You are proof that recovery is real, and you give people permission to believe it for themselves.
To the Engagement team — you are the voice of our community and the reason EDV punches so far above its weight.
To the Operations team — EDV may look like it’s gliding serenely on the surface. You are the furious pedalling underneath, and you make it look effortless.
To the Management group — I sat in a workshop in January, knowing I was leaving, and I just thought: this team is extraordinary. Competent, wise, collaborative, and reflective. Paul — sorry — they almost don’t need a CEO.
To Susie, our Acting CEO — EDV is in extraordinary hands for these next two months. Thank you for being such an astonishing, hardworking and wise collaborator. I know Paul will feel exactly the same.
And to the EDV Board, past and present — thank you so much for your thoughtful stewardship, your wise counsel, and the confidence you gave me, again and again, to just get on and do it.
To Minister Stitt, and to Ministers Foley, Merlino and Williams before you — having government that genuinely listens to our community, and acts on what it hears, has made an enormous difference to real people’s lives. Thank you for that, and to your hardworking advisors and Department of Health staff who made so much of it possible.
Paul — I am so glad this organisation is going into your hands. You have the commitment to cause, the calm, the humour, and the ideas that EDV needs for its next chapter. I hope you feel, every single day, the privilege of working with this team and this community. I certainly did.
I look forward to time with family, to new adventures — and to proving that life in semi-retirement is just as full, just slightly less scheduled
But this is not goodbye. It’s au revoir. The eating disorders community is not one you simply leave. You just love it from a different vantage point.
Belinda Caldwell finishes with EDV on 7 May. Our new CEO Paul Bird will start on 29 June. EDV Director of Programs and Operations Susie Hansen will be Acting CEO in the interim.