Get Adobe Flash player
NEDA TOOLKIT for Parents The NEDA Educational Toolkits Story The background Parents and Educators...the starting point In September 2007 the Board of Directors of NEDA officially approved the organization’s new strategic priorities, listing educational toolkits as a new NEDA priority fitting the new mission Using the core questions we decided the Parent and Educators Toolkits would be created first. Additional target audiences will include Coaches and Trainers, Health Care Providers, and Individual Patients. We then hired ECRI Institute, a recognized expert in providing publications, information and consulting services internationally for healthcare assessments. Their ability to translate work on behalf of the eating disorders community into useful, real world tools established an excellent partnership for creating the content of the toolkits. “To support those affected by eating disorders and be a catalyst for prevention, cures, and access to quality care.” Educational Toolkits were created to strengthen existing materials and provide vital information to targeted audiences. A list of audiences was prioritized by the board and acts as a reference for ongoing materials and toolkit development. The toolkit concept The initial concept of the toolkits was to tie together existing information along with the development of new materials to create complete packages that would help targeted audiences during critical moments in their search for help, hope and healing. They are intended for guidance, not for standards of care and would be based on information available at the time of development. Creation of the toolkits took thoughtful consideration. We identified several key questions as we began working on this project. First: “What is a NEDA Educational Toolkit?” led us to ask ourselves these questions: Who is the audience we are trying to reach? How many different toolkits will we develop? What should a toolkit contain? How do we include our stakeholders in the development of the toolkits? How does our audience want to receive the toolkit once it’s developed? How do we market the toolkits? What is the plan to revise and enhance the toolkits over time? Parents and Educators...the process ECRI initially created two separate toolsets with a consistent tone. We brought together two focus groups to guide us in the types of information to be included for each of the audiences – parents and educators. ECRI conducted additional interviews with interested elementary and high school teachers and families. Next, ECRI researched and revised existing NEDA educational materials and handouts (as needed) and created new materials as appropriate for each kit. The result was a draft set of “tools” for each toolkit. Some basic information is common to each; other tools are unique to each toolkit. As with all our materials, we want to increase the outreach and support to our constituents while providing reliable information to the general public about the unique and complex nature of eating disorders. All focus groups agreed that an electronic toolkit, accessible via the NEDA website, would be the easiest, most up-to-date way to make the toolkits available. NEDA researched and reviewed several online toolkits, looking for the best elements of each that could be used to inform the design concept. The final design plan for the organization of each kit was created by designer, David Owens Hastings. ECRI then produced the final documents that are the body of each of the first toolkits. The focus groups reviewed materials one more time and made suggestions for revisions. Their excellent edits and useful comments were integrated into the drafts. Joel Yager, MD, and additional clinical advisors were final reviewers on all documents. ECRI then submitted the Toolkit documents to NEDA. Page | 3