Our impact

We are proud that 20 years after its establishment, Butterfly continues to make a significant impact within the mental health sector.

With a multi-skilled team working across Australia, we improve lives for people with an eating disorder or body image issues in treatment, support, advocacy and prevention.

From 2022-2023 (FY), our impact included:

Treatment and support services

• 22,043 contacts made to Butterfly’s National Helpline which provides support over the phone, via email and through webchat 7 days a week. Helpline contacts have seen a 275% increase over the past five years.
• 458 people took part in Butterfly’s treatment and carer programs, as well as support groups
• 839 health professionals registered on Butterfly’s Referral Database
• Wandi Nerida celebrated its first year of operations in July 2022, shortly followed by winning the ACHS Clinical Excellence and Safety Award. Since opening in July 2021, 95 participants have received treatment at Wandi Nerida.
• Providing guard rails to state and federal government to inform the development of residential treatment centres across Australia.

Education & Prevention Services

• 209,919 young people reached through Butterfly Education Services
• 1,099 Schools participated in Body Kind Schools in September 2022
• 132,854 children reached through Butterfly Body Bright, with 547 schools registered for Australia’s first whole of primary school body image program.
• The inaugural Body Kind Youth Survey, supported by nib foundation, was conducted during September 2022, with over 1600 12-18 year olds telling us about their body image experiences.
• Butterfly continued to work with sporting organisations at community, state and national levels, providing education and guidance on the intersection between body image, eating disorders and sports. This included supporting Gymnastics Australia as they developed their Body Care Framework, aiming to improve the culture of gymnastics in Australia, in relation to body image and eating disorders, as well as working with the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) to develop athlete education as part of their Eating Disorders in Sport project.

Advocacy, Awareness & Collaboration

• Launch of a petition for a National Body Image Inquiry, in collaboration with our long-term partner Dove. The collaboration aimed to kick-start a national conversation about what legislation, policies and programs may be needed to bring about real change to address the high levels of body dissatisfaction in Australia.
• Continued Butterfly’s Let’s Talk Podcast, which is in the top 10% of weekly downloads worldwide.
• We launched the Parliamentary Friends of Eating Disorder Awareness Group, bringing together 23 Federal MPs across the political spectrum to highlight the critical need for more support and services for people suffering from an eating disorder or body image issues, and their families.
• Continued to assess gaps in the system of care and advocate for change to address them, including four policy submissions and participation in five research partnerships.
• Our first specific LGBTQIA+ campaign Body Pride reached over 25 million people through media & social media. This awareness campaign was developed in partnership with Instagram and aimed to reduce stigma and encourage help-seeking during Mardi Gras for LGBTQIA+ people impacted by eating disorders or body image concerns.
• Continuing to work with other organisations within the sector through the Eating Disorder Alliance of Australia, further strengthening our voice of lived experience and driving systemic change in the eating disorder sector. Members include Butterfly Foundation (Butterfly), Eating Disorders Families Australia (EDFA), Eating Disorders Victoria (EDV), Eating Disorders Queensland (EDQ), and Australia & New Zealand Academy for Eating Disorders (ANZAED).
• Formed a collaboration with Australia’s national eating disorder organisations to establish the ‘EveryBody Welcome’ campaign to tackle eating disorders and body image concerns in the LGBTQIA+ community and ensure support is inclusive and effective.
• Continuing to learn from, advocate for and amplify the voices of lived experience, this year saw an increase in collaborative opportunities for our lived experience network, the Butterfly Collective and Pathfinders speaker and ambassador program members, internally through focus groups, working groups, and co-design projects, as well as externally via our education programs and communications.
  • Our Lived Experience Network, The Butterfly Collective, reached 796 members, with a 51% increase in male Collective members, and the number of LGTBQIA+ Collective members quadrupled.
  • Our motivational speakers program, Butterfly Pathfinders reached 83 members.

Read more about this year’s impact by downloading our Annual Report.