Hello 2024! We hope everyone had a happy, safe, and restful holiday season and that you’ve come into the new year feeling refreshed and ready for the year to come.
As we bid farewell to the old year and welcome the new one, we reflect on the progress CanFASD has made over the last twelve months. The past year has been a testament to our collective efforts, and we would like to thank everyone has been involved with CanFASD. Today we wanted to take the opportunity to look at our organization by the numbers.
4,816 new online learners
CanFASD has nine different online courses that explore FASD from different perspectives and at different knowledge levels. We had over 8,800 new learners this year. Our most popular course is our Level 1 Foundations in FASD, which will give you a basic understanding of FASD. We also have profession-specific Level 2 courses, and a Level 3 Multidisciplinary Training for Diagnosis of FASD. This year we switched over to a new and improved platform! Let us know what you think!
8 public webinars
For the past three years, CanFASD has been running a webinar series to share knowledge and research about FASD with more people. In 2023, we hosted eight webinars on various topics related to FASD, including substance use treatment, sensory processing, and FASD diagnosis. Our webinar series will start back up in the new year, but in the meantime you can watch all of our past webinars on our website.
We also host member-only webinars for the CanFASD Individual Members. This is a great opportunity for you to connect directly with researchers and experts from the network and get an in-depth understanding of some of our ongoing research. Interested? Become a member today.
1 national FASD conference
We hosted our first ever Canada FASD Conference in Saskatoon this November. It was a resounding success. The conference sold out very quickly. There were over 550 dedicated attendees and a very long waitlist. Stay tuned for the next Canada FASD Conference happening in 2025!
71 blog posts
As regular readers, you know that we publish a new blog every Wednesday and we’ll share more throughout the week if we have lots of news and stories to talk about. We publish blogs on new FASD webinars, summaries of FASD research, news and upcoming events, and more. Last year we put out 77 blogs. You can sign up for our mailing list to receive these blogs right in your inbox, or check out our blog page every Wednesday!
6 new issue papers
In 2023 we published 6 new issue papers! These resources are intended to provide an overview of some of the research and evidence relating to key policy issues. Our 2023 publications include:
- Employment and Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder: An Updated Look at Strategies for Success
- Gap Analysis: Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity, Gender Expression, and Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder
- Why FASD Diagnostic Assessment is Important
- Gap Analysis: Human Trafficking and Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder
- Neurodiversity and FASD
- Diagnostic Assessment of Preschoolers with Prenatal Alcohol Exposure
Too much research to count!
Our research team was very busy last year. Between our staff, Research Leads, and network partners, we published a lot of new research ranging from mental health to diagnosis and everything in between. Here is a small selection of the papers published this year:
- Supportive alcohol policy as a key element of fetal alcohol spectrum disorder prevention
- Sex-related differences among individuals assessed for fetal alcohol spectrum disorder in Canada
- Latent classes of neurodevelopmental profiles and needs in children and adolescents with prenatal alcohol exposure
- Integrated Supports for Women and Girls Experiencing Substance Use and Complex Needs
- A tornado in the family: fetal alcohol spectrum disorder and aggression during childhood and adolescence: a scoping review
We have some exciting things planned for 2024, so be sure to stay tuned to our channels stay up to date!