Community Education As part of EDQ’s commitment to preventing the development of eating disorders, and encouraging early access to the appropriate treatment, EDQ dedicates time each year to community education. This can take a number of forms, including taking part in mental health forums and events; delivering educational visits to schools; attending and presenting at conferences; media appearances; guest speaking at forums; contributing to professional working groups; and holding public awareness events each year. Throughout this financial year, we were very active in the community education space, and were able to pivot many of our planned events and activities online in response to COVID-19. In particular, our annual World Eating Disorder Day was shifted from a traditionally in-person, single day event, to a week-long, interactive online festival. World Eating Disorders Action Day (WEDAD) is a grassroots movement designed for and by people affected by an eating disorder, their families, and the medical and health professionals who support them. This international day of awareness and action, held on June 2nd each year, is dedicated to disseminating accurate information and changing the ways that eating disorders are understood and perceived. The WEDAD campaign aims to raise global awareness that eating disorders are serious, treatable, illnesses that result from a complex interplay of genetics, biology, and environment. Eating disorders do not discriminate and affect people from all genders, ethnicities, sizes, nationalities, and ages. The 2020 theme of #ShareYourStory highlights the diversity within the eating disorder sector and raises the valuable voices of lived experience to an international platform.
EDQ utilised Instagram Live to host a variety of health professionals from the eating disorder sector, alongside people with a lived experience of eating disorders, both as individuals, and as carers/ loved ones/key supports. Interested participants were invited to submit questions on the daily topic ahead of time, and tune into the live-streamed session to participate in a conversation about eating disorder awareness and the events that impact us.
Each session was then recorded and uploaded to EDQ’s website for later viewing.
In addition, a number of individuals and carers with lived experience filmed and shared videos on their experience of the journey of recovery from an eating disorder. These videos were shared on EDQ’s social media channels and website, and were very popular, with one video reaching over 1800 viewers! EDQ created a new ‘Recovery Stories’ page on the website to permanently house these videos, providing all prospective clients and carers with a visible and accessible reminder that recovery is possible.
https://eatingdisordersqueensland.org.au/wedad2020-edq-live-on-instagram/
Eating Disorders Qld celebrates WEDAD each year in an effort to increase awareness of, and action towards, eating disorders, while reducing stigma towards those who live with eating disorders. WEDAD is a key event on our advocacy calendar, and we were keen to ensure that the event was not missed in the shift to online delivery.
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Eating Disorders Queensland
