Our Story

What started out as a pilot project in 1997 has turned into an innovative eating disorder program that has gained attention at a national level and has positively impacted thousands of lives. Saskatchewan residents are truly fortunate to be able to access holistic residential programming for disordered eating – including bulimia, anorexia, binge eating disorder and eating disorders not otherwise specified.

BridgePoint Center for Eating Disorders is a provincial resource that provides program options that include intensive rehabilitation, recovery and healing for people who are experiencing eating disorders. We are a non-profit provincially approved facility that works in partnership with Heartland Health Region, funded through Saskatchewan Health. We are a residential program where participants stay in community at our facility for the duration of their program. There are 15 beds available, with 24/7 support.

Holistic Healing

BridgePoint focuses on an alternative approach to healing—focusing on many areas of a person’s life. We incorporate different exercises throughout our programming that focus on mind, body, and spirit. At BridgePoint, we do not use the phrase “fixing” people because we do not believe they are broken. We believe that the participants have the answers within themselves and that they are stronger than they believe. This strength is what will help them get through this journey. BridgePoint is not a “cure” for disordered eating because we understand recovery is a process and it will take time. We are often asked our success rate and it is not possible to give a definitive answer because success is hard to define. For example, for one person success might be getting rid of their disordered eating behaviors but the thoughts are still occurring. Success to another individual may mean purging less. We have seen success in forms such as support, resiliency, courage, strength and hope.

We view eating disorders as a type of coping mechanism. We look into what is driving the behavior of disordered eating. We believe it is not beneficial to only treat the symptoms or behaviors. It is essential to look at the why someone is using these types of behaviors. We believe individuals use food in some way (eating too much, not eating enough) to cope with an internal struggle. At BridgePoint, we focus on these internal reasons which we have seen as previous trauma in their life, such as different forms of abuse or loss of loved ones. It could also be perfectionism, being high achievers, parental expectations or others areas of concern. By working through these struggles and focusing on developing healthy tools and skills to cope, rather than focusing solely on the food or solely on the behaviors, these individuals can start living their life differently and in turn their behaviors can diminish overtime and may eventually disappear because they are no longer needed.

Note: Carole Evacheski ( Kitchen Night Support), Susan Clark (Kitchen Night Support), Shirley Brown (LPN) are missing from the photo.

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NEWBridgePoint Annual Report 2018
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Testimonials

I trust everyone and the confidentiality and the trust here. It's difficult at times, very emotional and it's hard dealing with a lot of feelings but it's what you have to do and it feels so better much and so supportive.

There's no comparison to anything else I've tried and it’s a real blessing and an opportunity to be able to come here and an opportunity not to be taken lightly. It's a privilege to be here and I know that I will leave here a different person.

I can identify the issues and accept them and be able to learn how to work with that. I think over time we can say goodbye to the eating disorder. There is freedom at the end of the tunnel, but it takes work.

It's not about being broken and getting fixed, it's that we are all individuals who have pain and we're learning how to cope in a very healthy way.

The fact that BridgePoint operates so differently than the traditional medical model was very refreshing, and proved to be vital to my experience and healing.