If you're a speech pathologist working in the community, particularly in Australia or with adults with developmental disabilities, this episode is for you. But if you work with risk feeding plans in any setting, including the UK, there's plenty here that will resonate too.

In this episode of Dysphagia Research Bites, Chantelle hosts a panel discussion with speech pathologists: Meredith Lane, Niall Taylor, Anna Coates, and Dr Lillian Krikheli, to unpack one of the most clinically and ethically complex areas in our field: Eating and Drinking with Acknowledged Risk (EDAR).

The panel explores why this practice looks so different across countries, settings, and service systems and follows on from a previous episode on the same topic, but with a guest with a medical background.

In this episode we cover:

• The differences in terminology across countries
• How community and hospital settings approach EDAR differently — and why community SLPs often bear the brunt of overly risk-averse policies

• How supported disability accommodation settings can inadvertently remove client autonomy and de-skill individuals
• Why business decisions — not clinical ones — are often driving restrictive mealtime policies in community organisations
• What coroner's reports actually tell us about SLP accountability in dysphagia-related incidents
• The concept of dignity of risk and how to balance it with duty of care
• Why risk to pleasure, social engagement, and identity deserves as much attention as aspiration risk
• The problem with waivers and how they oversimplify complex clinical decisions
• What patient-centred decision-making actually looks like in practice

Additional Resources:

You can find more information on Eating & Drinking with Acknowledged Risk here:

https://www.rcslt.org/members/clinical-guidance/eating-and-drinking-with-acknowledged-risks-risk-feeding/

https://www.speechpathologyaustralia.org.au/Common/Uploaded%20files/Smart%20Suite/Smart%20Library/1b67af79-1074-4a30-a9a0-61f3eccb7b2d/20200221%20Position%20Statement%20Risk%20Feeding.pdf

For clinical resources and evidence-based dysphagia education beyond the podcast, head to: www.dysphagiabites.com