Tier
Tier 1: Positive Mental Health Promotion
Program Description
The Body Kind Education program provides workshops and resources for students, school staff, and parents.
The sessions focus on:
• Risk factors underlying negative body image issues and eating disorders
• Promoting healthy behaviours towards the body, eating, and physical activity
• Building resilience
• Reducing stigma
• Encouraging early identification of eating disorders
Workshops for staff help schools improve awareness, early intervention and prevention of young people experiencing eating disorders.
Parent seminars provide practical strategies to support body confidence in children and teens.
Detailed Cost
Body Kind Education operates on a low-cost, fee for service model for student, professional and parent sessions. Body Kind Schools and Body Kind Families are offered as free, awareness raising initiatives.
Schools can enquire about student presentation pricing by contacting the Butterfly Foundation Education Team. A tailored email including pricing is then sent. Individualised quotes are provided for schools wishing to build a whole of school program.
Discounts are offered where multiple sessions are delivered on the same day.
Implementation Considerations
Target population: Students in Years 5-12, school staff supporting them and their parents and carers.
Program adaptability: While the sessions for students are designed for universal prevention, they can be tailored to specific groups as required. All session content gets updated based on feedback collected from participants, facilitators and emerging evidence.
Staffing: No backfill is required when workshops are booked as part of in service training or as a twilight session.
Training requirements: Student presentations require a minimum of 50 minutes of delivery time. Professional onsite workshops are either 2 hours or 4 hours in length and 2 hours if offered virtually. Parent seminars are 1.5 hours in length. Schools are required to provide AV facilities and an appropriate space.
Factors to consider: A minimum group size of 10 and ideally no greater than 200 students is required for student presentations. A minimum group size of 6 and ideally no greater than 40 staff is required for professional workshops. A minimum group size of 10 is required for parent seminars, but there is no upper capacity limit.
Australian context: The program has been developed and applied in Australia.
Strength of Evidence
Level 3: Foundational and emerging evidence for program
Geographic Location
State-wide
Intended Outcomes
• Increased student awareness of the influences on body image and how to manage appearance pressures
• Increased student awareness of help-seeking strategies for self and others
• Increased student awareness of support services
• Improved staff awareness and prevention approaches through evidence-informed resources
• Staff have increased skills in early identification of the body and/or eating concerns and supporting students with eating disorders
• Parents have increased awareness of the importance of early intervention and what to do if concerned
• Parents can support their children in relation to key risk factors for body dissatisfaction and eating disorders
• Parents can positively role model body image in how they talk and the behaviours they engage in