NeuroaffirmED

Consultant

Alissa (they/them) lives and works in amiskwacîwâskahikan, colonially known as Edmonton. They have their bachelor's degree in Education and worked for 6 years as a junior high classroom teacher. Alissa is now the SOGI 123 Alberta Lead with ARC Foundation. Alissa is a fat, neurodivergent, mixed race, disabled, trans nonbinary lesbian. Alissa personally navigates ARFID and understands the difficulty in accessing supports while living at multiple intersections. Their intersectional identity has helped them embrace the work of collective liberation. They are attempting to hold onto joy whenever possible through crochet, playing the guitar, and reading with their wife. 

Consultant

Ayah Has is a youth settler on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded lands of the Coast Salish Peoples, specifically the Musqueam, Kwantlen, and Tsawwassen nations. She is passionate about using lived experience to improve mental health and integrated youth services through a variety of mediums such as having presented at the 2025 International Association for Youth Mental Health conference, being a co-youth panel moderator at the IYS LHS Summit in 2024, and through many more outlets. Outside of mental health advocacy, she also carries passions around collective liberation and social justice. As someone with lived experience around ADHD and an eating disorder, this work is all the more valuable to her.

Content Writer

Content Writer 
Catherine Cicuttini is a late-diagnosed Autistic/ADHD woman who is passionate about fostering authentic connection within her many and varied communities. As a trained Peer Mentor with Body Peace Canada, she has a keen interest in healing and is currently working on a genre-bending memoir about her eating disorder recovery. She has facilitated workshops on the topics of Autism and friendship, created the first ever Autistic Women's+ Retreat, and moderated the Autistic Women's+ Discussion Group—all through the support of Autism Edmonton. She is donating the profits from her poetry chapbook, "An Excruciating Undoing: Autism and the Art of Friendship” back to Autism Edmonton as a thank you for their incredible support. You can find her chapbook at Audrey’s Books or the Autism Edmonton offices; and more of her poetry in HNDL Mag or Poetry Pause. You can also connect with her on Instagram @the.everyday.with.catherine

Consultant

Gwen Donaldson lives on Vancouver Island, in the Territory of the Ligwilda'xw Nations. She has spent the last 6 years working in roles that support mental health and substance use services. She holds a Master's in Public Administration, and a Bachelor's in Art History and Visual Studies.  

Gwen is a parent, a partner, and an engaged community member. She spent over a decade working on commercial fishing boats, and at remote sport fishing lodges on the BC coast, and she has traveled extensively through Southeast Asia, Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. She enjoys spending summers on the beach, and winters on the ski hill.  She has lived experience of residential and outpatient-based eating disorder treatment and has been in recovery for over 20 years. She also lives happily with medically treated ADHD. Gwen can probably credit many of her best adventures and the beautiful life she has, to both living in recovery, and having ADHD.

Content Writer

Jake (he/they) is a queer and autistic person. He lives with various intersecting identities. They volunteer with several committees in their city. Jake has a passion for advocacy with the goal of making bureaucratic systems easier to navigate for the next person. He also enjoys beadwork and spending time with their service dog.

Consultant

Content Writer

Jordana (she/her) is an undergraduate student at the University of Guelph. She has always been passionate about mental health advocacy and in recent years has taken an interest in disability advocacy. Despite her area of study at university having little to do with mental health, she works hard to be an advocate in her community in her spare time. She participated in the 2024 cohort of the NextGen program by AccessNow where she began working on a project to improve accessibility at her university. In 2025, she had the opportunity to further her learning in youth mental health and disabled spaces when she presented at the 7th International Association for Youth Mental Health (IAYMH) conference in Vancouver, BC.

Reviewer

Kat (they/them) is a Registered Social Worker, currently working as a psychotherapist and group facilitator. As an Indigenous, Queer, neurodivergent person, they are committed to an anti-oppressive practice that recognizes the systemic barriers that inherently impact access to care. Their work is rooted in the idea that each person deserves to define their own goals related to their well-being, including the integration of non-Western approaches to treatment/care. Kat uses a trauma-informed approach that aims to deconstruct the hierarchies that exist within the “helping” professions. By prioritizing relationality and the importance of trust in the work, they strive to work alongside folks in a way that allows each person to define their own unique needs and how they feel most supported in the space.

Reviewer

Katharina grew up with significant disordered eating patterns in her family that were normalized. As a young adult, she became aware that these behaviours and ways of thinking weren't healthy and were actually categorized as an illness. With support, she successfully developed a healthier relationship with her body and food throughout studies at university. As a registered clinical counsellor, she has walked with many individuals of varying ages and backgrounds as they sought to recover from eating disorders. When she became a mom, the importance of interrupting difficult generational patterns became even more significant. Katharina has neurodivergent children who, at times have struggled with disordered eating. Working though the underlying causes and while simultaneously learning to parent neurodivergent children has been an arduous yet rewarding journey. In the process, she discovered that she too is neurodivergent. Katharina considers it a privilege to walk this path and continues to learn as she endeavours to better support individuals from a paradigm rooted in neurodiversity when working with all the various neurotypes.

Reviewer

Kayley is passionate about creating inclusive, accessible mental health supports, particularly for neurodivergent individuals. Drawing from her lived experience with both ADHD and disordered eating, she brings empathy, understanding, and a strong advocacy lens to the work she does. Kayley currently serves as the Student Wellness Coordinator at Nipissing University, where she works closely with the mental health and wellbeing and accessibility services teams to support the diverse student community. Together, they strive to foster a campus environment where all students feel seen, supported, and empowered.

In addition to her role at the university, Kayley is pursuing a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology with a minor in Business, continuing to deepen her knowledge of mental health and human behaviour to better support those around her. She is proud to contribute to this initiative with NEDIC, a resource that made a difference in her life when she needed it most.

Reviewer

Leslie is a university student with a strong interest in the intersections of neurodiversity and mental health. She aspires to bring both lived experience and academic knowledge to their work with NEDIC’s Neurodiversity Initiative. With a background in neuroscience-based research, Leslie is committed to supporting initiatives that amplify neurodivergent voices and improve access to inclusive care, evidence-based resources. She is interested in how eating disorders and disordered eating uniquely affect neurodivergent communities, and in tailoring supports that foster healing, empowerment, and self-advocacy. Leslie values opportunities to contribute to initiatives that elevate diverse perspectives and create meaningful change.

Consultant

Marilee (she/her) is a non-diet registered dietitian, late-identified ADHDer, and co-founder of Little Spuds Nutrition—a neurodivergent-affirming pediatric and family nutrition practice based in Victoria, BC. She specializes in eating disorders and neurodivergent nutrition, supporting clients of all ages in building positive relationships with food and resilience against disordered eating.

Drawing on both lived experience and clinical expertise, Marilee provides trauma-informed, weight-inclusive care grounded in Health at Every Size®, Intuitive Eating, and anti-oppressive frameworks. Her approach centers empathy, body autonomy, and reducing barriers to nourishment—helping clients make peace with food, rebuild trust in their bodies, and access food without shame. 

Beyond her clinical practice, Marilee consults with clinicians and organizations across BC to co-create more inclusive, affirming systems of care for neurodivergent individuals navigating disordered eating. Outside of work, she enjoys life as a mom and her enduring love for all things cheese.

Consultant

Raquel (she/her) is a Registered Social Worker, Clinical Social Work Specialist, and Certified Intuitive Eating Counsellor based out of Kjipuktuk (Halifax, Nova Scotia). She is the owner of private practice Birch Stand Mental Health Services where she specializes in eating disorders, working with clients across NB, NS, and ON. Raquel is a member of Queer and Trans Therapists of Nova Scotia and is a co-founding member of The Aleo Collective, a group of interdisciplinary eating disorder practitioners. She recently became a Certified Affiliate with the National Farmer Mental Health Alliance as an Agriculture-Informed Therapist. 

Raquel also draws from her lived/living experience as a queer person with ADHD who has recovered from an eating disorder. Prior to working in private practice, she volunteered as an eating disorder recovery Peer Mentor and currently volunteers for the St Margaret’s Bay Food Bank, serving on their Board of Directors.

Content Writer

Taryn (she/her) is a neurodivergent Occupational Therapist passionate about mental health, neurodiversity, and neuro-affirming research. In her clinical role, she helps neurodiverse kids and teens understand their unique brains and bodies, participate in meaningful activities, and engage in self-advocacy. This includes working with youth experiencing selective eating and/or Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder (ARFID).

Beyond clinical practice, Taryn is involved in research on autistic burnout, inertia, meltdown, and shutdown (BIMS), including co-creating the website www.bimslab.ca. She also creates and shares neuro-affirming content on Instagram (@tarynkieller.ot) to promote awareness, acceptance, and thoughtful conversations around neurodivergence and mental health.

As a neurodivergent person with lived experience of an eating disorder, Taryn brings both clinical expertise and personal insight to her work with NEDIC. She is committed to developing compassionate, accessible resources that address the intersection of neurodiversity and disordered eating.

Content Writer