Cafe Life - Update 08

Debbie Butters of Durham Trading Standards gives Food Vision an update on thier Café Life Project, which aspires to educate children on how to choose healthy eating options in a fun way.

Initially launched in September 2004, Café Life healthy eating program has been further developed by Durham County Council Trading Standards Service with the invaluable help of the County’s ICTand Education Services.

Originally Café Life was burned onto a CD Rom and distributed to schools. However it proved not to be the best media form. There was a strong reliance on schools having CD readers available. Also if we wanted to update the program or add in other foods it proved costly and difficult.

We approached the Education Service to see if they would fund the project update, a website, and contacted our ICT department to see if they would help. ICT drew up three designs all of which were excellent. We took the designs to Catchgate Primary to get the children’s point of view. The kids had some great ideas and in the end they had the most influence over the project.

Aims and Objectives

The main aims were to improve what we already had so that more people could access the program.

We wanted to add in more foods including some of the more popular ethnic foods like curry, kebabs and favourites like lasagne. We wanted to make the package brighter and more appealing to children so we’ve added a cartoon character and used a lovely bright green as a backdrop. We also felt that the CD rom didn’t allow for any comments or feedback so we included a feedback form for children’s and parents comments and queries.

The expected outcomes are that the children enjoy the program at school, that they will show their parents the program when they get home from school and that it gives a focus for parents and children to discuss healthy eating issues. We also hope that children will use the program again and again as we add in more features.

Partners

DCC ICT Department
DCC Education Department in particular the Healthy Schools Co-ordinator
Catchgate Primary School –helped us with design choices and improvements

Methodology

The new program has remained true to its original intention of being user friendly and easily understandable. The main improvement is that the program is now freely available on-line and is therefore accessible to all.

Although the program was developed for use in schools, we hope, in addition, to encourage interaction between parents and children in their familiar home surroundings. The target audience has remained the same, children aged 5-16 years. This is mainly due to the use of the Caroline Walker Trust Guidelines.

The traffic light system is still in use along with additional information in the form of pie and bar charts, highlighting the nutritional breakdown of the meal and its components. This extends the use of the program into developing mathematical and problem-solving skills. Officers now have their own password so that more food products can be added later and authorised officers can gain access to the feedback forms.

Promotion

Café Life is taken into schools and used as part of an educational toolkit encouraging pupils to become more aware of the food choices they make. We include quizzes for pupils ‘Guess the brand name’ of products from their descriptions. The use of imitation food is a popular learning tool and now has its own quiz questions.

The program has been publicised in local newspapers, Countywide magazine, on the schools Extranet and on DCC’s electronic notice board

There is also a mention for Café Life in the LACORS/FSA Councillors handbook on food matters. In May 2008 the council is holding a member ‘market place’ for the newly elected councillors – both the ICT department and the Environment Service are taking Café Life to the event, one to show off the ICT skills and one to highlight the work done with children and nutrition.

The Healthy Schools Co-ordinator is also well aware of our work and she informs us when healthy eating events are taking place in schools.

Resources

We obtained funding through the Healthy Schools Co-ordinator (Education Service) and our ICT Department matched it. There were mainly five staff involved including three ICT officers and a manager and an officer and manager from Trading Standards. However other officers were involved in the purchasing and sampling foodstuffs for analysis.

We hope to obtain future funding in order to add in breakfast cereals and packed lunch type food but to date we haven’t developed a plan of action. The program also contributes to one of our Corporate aims of promoting strong, healthy and safe communities.

Evaluation

A hit counter has been incorporated so the Authority can keep track of usage and there is a feedback form for children and parents to air their views and inform us of improvements they would like to see.

We hope that the measure of success will come from the children’s obvious enjoyment of the program, the number of hits we get and the positive feedback we hope to secure from users.

Lessons Learned

Its never as easy as it looks! We were very lucky to have a brilliant ICT department. They had endless patience with us and in the end most of the headaches seemed to be theirs. Finding pictures of the food that could be used in the program and working out the mathematical parameters in order to trigger a red, amber or green traffic light seemed to be the most difficult problems. We overcame most things just by talking it through and a sense of humour definitely helped.

Future Developments

It is hoped that this program will continue to be used in schools either independently or with Officers attending as part of lesson plans or at planned health awareness events. For the future it is hoped that more data can be added to the program to include breakfast clubs and packed lunches.

Café Life is still seen very much as a work in progress which we hope to improve with the help and assistance of our partners. At the moment there is no sound on the program as it is intended to be used as a discussion tool-this is an area which might or might not develop. We hope the children will provide some of the ideas for development as they have firm opinions on lots of things.

Note

Legal information about Café Life can be found on the program at www. cafelifeonline.info The Café Life logo is a registered trade mark

Local Authorities, educational establishments, parents and children who wish to use the program are encouraged to do so in line with the legal information supplied. The Durham Food Team welcomes feedback and constructive criticism.

To view the first Cafe life report

Contact Details

Contact Name: Debbie Butters

Job Title: Divisional Manager

Phone: 0191 383 4716

Email: foodteam@durham.gov.uk

Website: www. cafelifeonline.info/

Organisation: Durham County Council

Address: County Hall, Durham

Other Resources:

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