We Grow Together

Our Story

BFRB UK & Ireland was founded in 2015 by Bridget Bradley and Pavitt Thatcher, who began by running monthly in-person support groups in London and Edinburgh. In 2020, the groups moved online during the pandemic, and attendance has grown exponentially since then. To meet increasing demand, a new volunteer team joined in 2021.

In recent years, we’ve expanded our support group offering to include under-18s, parents, and loved ones, and introduced regular wellbeing sessions such as art and yoga. We’ve also grown, and hope to continue expanding, our in-person events. In 2024, in collaboration with Prof Clare Mackay at the University of Oxford, we hosted our first BFRB Conference, featuring talks from leading researchers and BFRB advocates. The next BFRB Conference will take place in October 2026.

Our advocacy and awareness work has been featured across UK and Irish national radio and television, as well as in newspapers and other online media. We maintain close links with the research community: several members of our volunteer team are BFRB researchers, and we actively collaborate with academic partners working in this area. We regularly share study opportunities, new findings, and help connect researchers with people who have lived experience via our network.

Mission Statement

BFRB UK & Ireland exists to improve the lives of people affected by body-focused repetitive behaviours (BFRBs) across the UK, Ireland, and beyond. Our main mission is to provide compassionate peer support and to challenge stigma through advocacy and education. We are a welcoming community for everyone, regardless of where they are in their journey or what “healing” means to them. We are inclusive of all lived experiences and do not endorse a single model of recovery; our organisation supports a range of goals, including acceptance, harm reduction, improved control, and being pull or pick-free.