Community Rooms

For Eating Disorders Awareness Week 2024, we're focusing our attention on under-recognized barriers to accessing care for eating disorders, such as poverty, the ongoing impacts of settler colonization, and navigating care experiences where people's identities and histories are not affirmed.

In these two-hour community rooms, people with living and lived experience with an eating disorder will work together collectively to map their journey towards accessing “help”, connect with others across the country who might have similar experiences, and affirm that they are not “too complex”, “too much”, or have “failed treatment”. 

Community room attendees will: 

• Have space to discuss harm that has happened, and receive validation that they deserve more affirming care from peers who have shared identities and/or experiences
• Have an opportunity to own their autonomy, name the type of support they need, and feel empowered that they are capable of deciding what recovery path feels most healing to them
• Leave with increased understanding on the impacts of trauma, shame, and the effects of a healthcare system that is under-resourced to support our experiences on our mental health journey
• Receive access to our room’s notes as a tangible reminder of what we discussed today

Target audience: people with lived and living experience of eating disorders. We will have breakout rooms where the voices of people with the following experiences will be centred to create space for their perspective: 

• people with co-occurring conditions and/or longstanding eating disorders
• people who identify as Black, Indigenous, or a person of colour
• Trans, non-binary, and/or intersex people

A BIG THANK YOU TO THOSE OF YOU WHO ATTENDED!