What was left out, and why
A short honest list beats a long guessed one. These were looked at during this check and not published, with the reason in each case. This section is here because it is the part that proves the search was real.
If you are waiting months for a programme, or you do not qualify for one, or you are a parent with nowhere to put any of this, a support group is often the thing that is actually available. Nobody publishes a checked list of them with their meeting times. This is that list: 30 groups, grouped by region, each one read on the organisation's own website rather than on a directory.
This is a free public resource and there is nothing on it to buy. It lists eating disorder peer support groups, caregiver and family support groups, and facilitated support circles that a person in Ontario can actually get into, together with the meeting times the organisation publishes on its own website. That is the only thing every entry has in common.
Inclusion here is not an endorsement. Nothing has been assessed, ranked or recommended. There are no reviews, no ratings and no best of framing on this page, because a list like this has no honest way to produce them. Lauren Hofstee has no financial relationship with any organisation listed. Nobody paid to be here, nobody can pay to be here, and there are no referral fees, commissions or reciprocal arrangements with any of them. Nothing here is clinical advice.
Every group was found and read on the organisation's own website on 2026-08-07. Nothing came from Psychology Today, from 211, from a regional healthline site, from an aggregated list of free groups, or from memory. Where an organisation publishes its schedule only inside its own PDF calendar or inside an event listing that a browser has to build, that file or listing was opened and read. Where an organisation's own page did not state a fact, that fact is not on this page, and it says so instead of guessing. Groups that could not be verified were left out, and the exclusions are printed further down rather than hidden.
Almost every organisation on this page publishes a version of the same warning, in its own words, without being asked. Hopewell states its groups are meant to be complementary to formal mental health services and medical treatment and are not a replacement for these services. Body Brave states, on every group description, that the group is not a substitute for outpatient or inpatient hospital-based treatment. Danielle's Place states its programs should not be used as a stand-in for hospital treatment and asks you to see a family physician if there has been a significant change in weight. The Looking Glass Foundation states that its chats are not a crisis service and that participants must be medically and psychiatrically stable to take part.
Take them at their word. A support group can carry a person through a six month wait, and it can end an isolation that nothing else touches. It cannot check an electrolyte, restore weight, or keep somebody safe who is medically unstable. If you are not sure how serious things are, that is a reason to be assessed, not a reason to wait.
Each entry gives the organisation exactly as it names itself, the group name, who the group is for, whether it is online or in person and where, the meeting schedule in the organisation's own words, the cost only where the organisation publishes one, whether a referral or an assessment is required, how a person joins, and a link to the exact page it was checked against. Where a page does not publish a cost, the entry says not published. That is not a gap in the research, it is the finding.
Meeting times are printed exactly as the organisation publishes them. Several national organisations publish in Atlantic or Pacific time rather than Eastern. Those are not converted here, because a quietly helpful time conversion is exactly the sort of thing that sends a frightened person to a group an hour after it ended. The time zone is named every time.
Two words decide whether you can join something this week. A drop-in group takes people at any point, so long as you register once. A closed group builds week to week and shuts its doors after the first session or two. Sheena's Place codes them D and C on its calendar, and its summer 2026 season runs from early July to late September. Body Brave runs three ongoing weekly drop-ins alongside ten week closed groups which, on the check date, were waitlisted or closed. Hopewell's art therapy group is semi closed and takes new people on the first Wednesday of each month.
Only groups you can currently join, or that publish a dated upcoming session, are listed as entries below. Where a group exists but has no published dates, it is recorded in the exclusions with what the organisation does publish, so you can still ask about it.
None of the groups on this page are crisis services and none of them say they are. If you are in crisis in Ontario, call or text 9-8-8, the Suicide Crisis Helpline, or call 911, or go to your nearest emergency department. For eating disorder information, referrals and someone to talk to without a diagnosis, the National Eating Disorder Information Centre helpline is 1-866-633-4220 toll free, or 416-340-4156 in Toronto. To find services near you, ConnexOntario is 1-866-531-2600, free and 24 hours.
Every entry below was checked against the organisation's own page on 2026-08-07. Inclusion is not an endorsement, Lauren has no financial relationship with anyone listed, and nothing here is clinical advice. Meeting times, seasons and fees change without notice, so confirm directly before you rely on anything here.
Toronto, Peel, York, Halton and Durham. Most of the groups here are online and are open to anyone located in Ontario, so read this section even if you live somewhere else. Two of them are in person in Toronto. Sheena's Place also runs free Infosessions every second Monday, alternating between 2:00pm to 3:00pm and 5:00pm to 6:00pm by Zoom, where its Program Registrars explain the groups and how registration works, and those sessions are open to family members and professionals as well.
Hamilton, Niagara, Waterloo, London and Windsor. This section is short, and the reason is printed further down: the two organisations that would have filled it either publish no open group, or no longer have a working website.
Barrie, Simcoe, Peterborough, Kawartha and the corridor north of Toronto.
Ottawa, the Ottawa Valley, Kingston and Brockville. Eastern Ontario has more published peer support than anywhere else in the province outside Toronto.
Sudbury, Timmins, Thunder Bay, Sault Ste. Marie and North Bay. This is the thinnest part of the province and this page is not going to pretend otherwise.
Organisations with no single Ontario home region. Each one states on its own site who is eligible, and each entry below quotes that statement. Several publish their meeting times in Atlantic or Pacific time. Those times are printed exactly as the organisation publishes them and are not converted here.
A short honest list beats a long guessed one. These were looked at during this check and not published, with the reason in each case. This section is here because it is the part that proves the search was real.
Peer support is one seat, not the whole room. Publicly funded treatment programs, with medical monitoring and a dietitian on the team, are listed by region with the ages each one takes and the referral route on the publicly funded eating disorder programs in Ontario page. Community organisations and help lines that will talk to you today, with no referral and no diagnosis, are on the eating disorder support across Ontario page. If you are a student, campus health services are usually the fastest door in the province and they are listed on the Ontario campus eating disorder support page. If the piece you are missing is a therapist, the practices that state on their own website that they treat eating disorders are on the Ontario eating disorder therapists page. If it is nutrition, the publicly funded places where you can see a Registered Dietitian at no charge are on the free dietitian care in Ontario page.
Lauren Hofstee is a Registered Dietitian with the College of Dietitians of Ontario, working in private practice. Her practice is separate from every organisation listed here. She is not affiliated with any of them, receives nothing from any of them, and cannot get anyone into any of them. Nothing on this page is an assessment of anyone's clinical work, and nothing on it is medical advice.
This page exists because the question comes up in almost every first call, usually from someone who has been given a waiting time measured in months, or from a parent who has just realised there is nothing for them at all. The honest answer, that the information existed but was scattered across dead links and undated PDFs, was not good enough. Sessions in Lauren's own practice are virtual across Ontario, private, and paid out of pocket or through extended health benefits, and start with a free fifteen minute introductory call. If a free group on this page is the better fit right now, take it.
No. This is a reference list, not a recommendation, and inclusion is not an endorsement. A group is here for one reason only: the organisation that runs it publishes information about it on its own website, and that information could be read and dated. There are no reviews here, no ratings, no rankings and no best of framing, because a list like this has no honest way to produce them.
No. There is no financial relationship of any kind with any organisation on this page. Nobody paid to be listed, nobody can pay to be listed, and no referral fee, commission or reciprocal arrangement exists with any of them. If that ever changed it would be written at the top of this page in plain words.
No, and every serious organisation on this page says so itself. Hopewell states its groups are meant to be complementary to formal mental health services and medical treatment and are not a replacement for these services. Body Brave states its groups are not a substitute for outpatient or inpatient hospital-based treatment. Danielle's Place states its programs should not be used as a stand-in for hospital treatment. Peer support sits alongside medical monitoring, nutrition care and therapy. It does not replace any of them.
For most of the groups on this page, no. Sheena's Place states no formal eating disorder diagnosis or referral is required. Eating Disorders Nova Scotia states a diagnosis or referral is not needed. Body Brave does require an intake call and registration in its Recovery Support Program first, and Eating Disorders Nova Scotia requires one individual session with a Family Peer Supporter before the family group. Each entry says which applies.
Because that is how the organisation publishes them, and converting somebody else's timetable is exactly the kind of small helpful edit that ends up sending a person to a group an hour after it finished. Times are printed here as published, with the time zone named. Do the arithmetic yourself, with the organisation's page open.
Because there is so little in Northern Ontario, and this page will not invent it. During this check the only in-person peer meetings in the north that could be verified from an organisation's own site were the Overeaters Anonymous meetings in Sudbury and Timmins. The regional eating disorder programs in Thunder Bay and elsewhere are treatment services that need a referral, and they publish no open group. Everything in the province-wide and online section is available from anywhere in Ontario with an internet connection.
Then it is probably one of two things. Either the organisation does not publish it on its own website, in which case it cannot be verified and is not listed, or it was found and excluded for a reason that is printed on this page. Write in either way and it will be checked again.
Many are, and the entry says so only where the organisation says so. Sheena's Place, Body Brave, Eating Disorders Nova Scotia, F.E.A.S.T., Overeaters Anonymous and Eating Disorders Anonymous all state in their own words that there is no fee. Hopewell publishes a price of 50 dollars for its art therapy group with a pay-what-you-can option, and free programming for Indigenous, First Nations, Inuit and Metis communities, while its drop-in group and social nights are free. Where no cost is published, the entry says not published rather than guessing.
Write in and it will be corrected. If you work at one of these organisations and a time, a fee or an eligibility rule is out of date, or you would rather not be listed at all, say so and it will be changed or removed. Corrections are welcome from anyone, not only from the organisations.
Every entry was checked against the organisation's own page on 2026-08-07. Seasonal groups end, calendars turn over, and volunteers move on. Sheena's Place in particular runs in four seasons with a new calendar each time, and the summer 2026 season on this page ends in September. Confirm directly before you rely on anything here.
Last checked 2026-08-07. Each group on this page was read on its organisation's own official website on that date, and every quoted or paraphrased fact comes from that page, that organisation's own PDF calendar, or that organisation's own event listing. Nothing was taken from a directory, an aggregator, or from memory. A fee is printed only where the operator publishes it. A meeting time is printed only where the operator publishes it, in the time zone the operator uses. Groups that could not be verified were left out, and the exclusions are printed above rather than hidden.
Inclusion is not an endorsement and no clinical judgment is expressed or implied about anyone listed. Lauren Hofstee has no financial relationship with any organisation on this page. This page is information, not medical advice, and peer support is not a substitute for medical monitoring, nutrition care or treatment.
If you run one of these groups and something here is wrong, out of date, or framed in a way you would not choose, or if you would simply rather not be listed, please write to laurenhofstee.rd@gmail.com and it will be corrected or removed. Corrections are welcome from anyone.
If a situation is urgent or medically unstable, contact your local emergency service, or call or text 9-8-8. The National Eating Disorder Information Centre helpline is 1-866-633-4220. ConnexOntario is 1-866-531-2600.
The verified entries on this page are also published as open data at /data/ontario-eating-disorder-peer-support.json, free to quote and reuse with attribution.
Lauren Hofstee is a Registered Dietitian with the College of Dietitians of Ontario, offering virtual, non-diet, weight-inclusive nutrition counselling across Ontario. She works alongside groups, therapists and treatment teams rather than instead of them. The introductory call is free and there is no pressure to book anything after it.
Book a free intro callLooking for the free public route? See publicly funded eating disorder programs in Ontario. Need a dietitian at no charge? See free dietitian care in Ontario. Looking for a therapist? See Ontario eating disorder therapists.