Cooking up a storm

8th September 2008

If the public health services team at Bristol are thumping their chests and yelling "we are the champions" — who can blame them? Two years of developing local projects that bring good food to people who would otherwise miss out have earned them this year's National Food Champion award for improving community diet and nutrition. It is a title the council will hold until 2010.

The Food Standards Agency launched the awards last October to acknowledge the tremendous work being carried out by local authorities in improving food safety and quality. The awards were developed with, among other bodies, the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health, and winners work with these bodies in the year ahead to champion the winning approach and share good practice.

Bristol took the overall title for a series of local projects that included vegetable box schemes, lunch clubs for the over-sixties, breakfast clubs poor eating habits and lack of cooking skills," says Grace Davies, senior EHO and a project superviser for Bristol's public health services. When they set out to improve diets what was the most urgent issue? "Obesity is so high up the government's agenda it was a prime driver for all of us and we felt this was certainly the most appropriate use for our resources at the time," says Toni Smith, the FSA's south-west organiser and a key partner in this project.

The first course ran successfully in Knowle West, then other areas wanted to join the scheme. The public health team picked Southmead in north Bristol for the next Cooking from Scratch project, which started last year, because the area had particular health needs.

There are high levels of unemployment, families on low income, teenage pregnancies, and many indicators of poor health. Local GPs in the area are worried about obesity levels and passed on these concerns to the PCT's public health directorate.

Kitchen quest

The first task was finding a suitable kitchen. The Southmead Youth Centre offered its kitchen, but there were problems: "We then discovered the whole centre was being closed for refurbishment from August until December," says Ms Davies.

"Therefore, considerable time was spent investigating the availability of suitable and affordable kitchens within the community. In the end, we opted for a community centre that had a kitchen suitable for groups of five to six, with a small hall next door that was useful for related group work."

After a couple of taster sessions in September, a teenage group from the local pupil referral unit signed up to a six-week course, starting in October, which included the CIEH Level 1 Food Safety Awareness certificate. There was a further group from the Southmead Youth Club, and from the young mums group. and other initiatives to transform school meals, setting up community kitchens, nutrition training and food procurement.

These were developed with Bristol Primary Care Trust's public health directorate, initially using money awarded by the FSA.

Balanced diet

Chief among them is the Cooking from Scratch training scheme, which Bristol launched in 2006 with the help of food consultant Francine Russell. People who attend the course are shown how to plan, prepare and dish up nutritious, simple and affordable meals rather than shopping for cheap but fattening ready meals and calorie- laden snacks.

"Eating a balanced healthy diet can be challenging, particularly for individuals and families on low incomes who may have the additional hurdles of inadequate nutritional information, little money to spend on food,

After the Knowle West project, the team decided to revamp the course content. It agreed that the folder the participants were allowed to keep after the course needed to be less wordy, and also needed more practical information and recipes. So Ms Russell rewrote the folder to include the Eatwell plate and food groups, the five-a-day message on fruit and vegetables, top tips for a healthy diet, how to reduce fat and salt, good sources of nutrients, label reading, and the all- important recipes. She also liaised with groups and individuals and organised getting the groups signed up and present on the course dates.

There were a few hitches. During the first course, some of the teenagers proved hard to handle, so the team had to talk to schools and youth workers about the best way to manage difficult behaviour. As a result, further teenage groups had a support worker present during the course. At three hours a session, the course also proved to be too long, so it was cut to two-hour stints and spread over seven rather than six weeks.

Each course had a maximum of six participants. How successful was the teenage project? "It was fun and sociable, and each group made several dishes between them during each of the course sessions," says Ms Davies. "Apart from gaining experience in preparation and cooking, there was lots of informal discussion during the sessions, which touched on food hygiene issues common in the home, shopping on a budget, what it means to have a healthy balanced diet and so on. Participants were encouraged to have a go at making the recipes at home, too."

The paper results were impressive: every candidate from the four original Cooking from Scratch groups gained level 1 food safety awareness certificates and both Bristol City Council's public health services team and Bristol PCT's public health directorate have been featured in The Guardian thanks to a media-savvy use of robust evidence gleaned from their regular Quality of Life survey. After the course, the participants had the chance to put their new skills to practical use. The tangible results remain impressive, as countless testimonials from healthier citizens indicate.

Adrian Jenkins, public health services manager at Bristol City Council, said: "At Knowle West we put on a disco at the youth club, where teenagers provided the buffet. We also put on a pensioners' lunch event at Southmead youth centre, where the teenagers all prepared the menus as well as doing all the cooking." His advice to those interested in following suit? "Community engagement is critical once you've identified the vulnerable communities. They are vulnerable because they are hard to reach, but if you get hold of them, ask them what they want and tailor it from there; it can be done."

More funding

As far as advising other local authorities on how to emulate their success, Ms Davies says: "We always go through Toni Smith at the FSA and we discuss everything first with the people we are trying to help. You have to tailor courses to the needs of participants, which usually means evening courses and laying on transport — both massive factors. Our feedback forms showed 100 per cent approval." The original project has spawned a host of related variations on the theme of Cooking from Scratch for Bristol's most vulnerable residents.

As a result, further funding has enabled the training of 40 key workers in Southmead, Lawrence Hill, Easton, St Pauls and Lawrence Weston this September and October to deliver healthy eating or cooking courses to their client group. "We thought, instead of training kids, parents or the vulnerable themselves, if we train public sector and voluntary sector workers for free, they can potentially train hundreds at a time instead of 40 or so at a time," says Mr Jenkins. Another variation of an original project is the Knowle West community kitchen, which continues to deliver cooking classes for local residents long after the original Cooking from Scratch course in 2006.

The Barton Hill Neighbourhood Renewal project has secured Lottery funding over three years to kit out a learning kitchen and employ a development worker and tutors to deliver the course. The healthy eating picture is completed with the successful community market in Lockleaze, running for three years and making fresh locally produced food accessible to the community, and the planned allotment project involving schools and Age Concern at Knowle West Health Park.

And what of Bristol's future, once the headlines, and quite possibly a large degree of the funding, has gone? "I feel that as a profession we should look a lot more at what businesses are actually serving up," says Mr Jenkins.

"Next year we'll take fresh ideas to the FSA concerning health awards for the premises around schools that sell to kids in lunch breaks and we want to stage a regional conference. We also want to follow up what other organisations are doing — for example, the Welsh FSA.