Our community education programming is delivered to over 20,000 people across Canada every year. Our vision is to have home, school, youth-facing, and healthcare environments that are body-inclusive, where people feel accepted and respected. Our sessions blend best practices in health and education policy to increase your confidence in navigating the vast array of information around food, weight, exercise, and health in a non-discriminatory manner.
We offer two customizable workshop options for teachers and school support staff so that you and your colleagues can learn the skills and tools you need. One focuses on supporting students in need, while the other engages educators and administrators in a conversation about taking a whole-school approach to eating disorder prevention, including policies and curriculum.
Our interactive workshops for elementary and middle school students are appropriate for students in Grades 4 through 8. We’ll explore ways students can appreciate all that their body does, reflect on all the values food brings into our lives, shed light on pervasive media messaging, and converse about communicating care to themselves and the people around them.
Our workshops for students in Grades 9 through 12 dive deep into spotting (and then rejecting!) diet culture. We’ll reveal the sticky truth of many social media posts, engage in critical discussions about conversations centred around "health", share information about the importance of food, and share resources for students to help their peers if they notice a concern.
Our parent panels are designed for your local community, creating a safe space for caregivers to share their concerns while empowering them with resources to support the well-being of their children. We organize these in collaboration with partner organizations, such as school parent councils, local school boards, community organizations, and interested groups of parents. Panelists include youth with lived experience, fellow parents, and mental health practitioners arranged by our team to reflect the needs of the local community.
In line with national post-secondary mental health strategies and frameworks, our team has created two educational workshops and a social media campaign that have been delivered to post-secondary communities across eight provinces and territories over the last two years. Whether you are a group of student wellness ambassadors looking to relay information in an eating disorder-sensitive way, a team of campus counsellors looking for best practices, or coordinating a wellness summit on campus, our facilitators can tailor our virtual programming to meet your needs.
Our workshops aim to help people recognize disordered eating, reflect on their internalized weight stigma, respond compassionately with someone experiencing disordered eating, and navigate to different pathways to care. For mental health providers, we share latest practices on assessment and time-limited strategies to support your work. We can deliver in-person presentations to clinics, teams, or organizations based in the Greater Toronto Area, and virtual presentations via Zoom to anyone across the country.
Find out more about our work
NEDIC's workshops are tailored to meet the unique needs of each group of participants. We will work with you to determine the most helpful content for your group, and can adjust the length of our programming as needed.
Eating disorders can be fatal, so there is a strong need for accurate and accessible public education. NEDIC emphasizes the importance of enhancing the knowledge, resources, and skills of both professionals and communities in the realm of eating disorders, food and weight preoccupation and related issues.
NEDIC offers on-site presentations for people of all ages within the Greater Toronto Area.
NEDIC delivers live interactive workshops and webinar-style presentations for groups anywhere across Canada. Our facilitators take full advantage of the possibilities an online presentation offers. For instance, anonymous polling lets participants ask the questions and express reactions they might not otherwise, allowing for rich discussion.
Please note: NEDIC has a pro Zoom account to host presentations. If your organization uses an alternative platform (e.g., Google Meets, MSTeams, GoToMeeting), NEDIC is happy to accommodate and will rely on you to set up the meeting link.
NEDIC currently has support through our funding streams to provide our educational workshops to K-12 schools and post-secondary institutions at no cost.
At NEDIC, we believe that money should never be a barrier to providing crucial education to communities in need. We provide workshop fees on a sliding scale in an attempt to accommodate all interested audiences. This money is used to directly cover costs related to preparation of tailored content, staffing, and travel for each presentation. We are more than happy to work with you to determine a fee that makes our programming accessible to your context. Please connect with us to learn more!
Research shows that it is not helpful to talk directly about eating disorders (diagnoses, symptoms, specifics about behaviours) with people under the age of 18. Some research suggests it is actually more likely to teach disordered behaviours than to help youth combat them.
In presentations aimed at youth who are in high school, we can and do share strategies and support options geared at supporting a friend who might be struggling with their relationship with food, weight, or body image. We often receive bookings in response to a young person being diagnosed with an eating disorder, and in these cases, we work with the person booking to ensure we have responsible safety measures in place to ensure we do no harm.
If you have a concern about someone you know, NEDIC has plenty of resources for you to explore:
You can browse our webinars archive to register for upcoming sessions, as well as view past sessions organized for public distribution. We address various topics, some of which include diet culture and weight stigma, eating disorder and comorbidities, skills and strategies for folks directly affected, tips for educators, and treatment approaches.