Community Nutritionists
In 1995 Coventry City Council initiated a pilot project employing a community nutritionist to work solely within one socially and economically deprived area. This community nutritionist was to address food poverty, cooking skills and food labelling awareness.
The pilot project was assessed and the results indicated a significant improvement in health, enough to justify the project expanding to include other areas. The success of this initial pilot was endorsed by a community vote to expand the project to each of Coventry’s most deprived areas.
Aims and Objectives
The project’s overall aim is to achieve improvement in community health, particularly in reducing nutrition related illnesses such as coronary heart disease, blood pressure and problems of being overweight.
The Coventry communities that had higher than average statistical evidence of nutritional related diseases were targeted. The project covers six deprived areas in Coventry and at present there is one community nutritionist in each area.
Partners
Coventry City Council, Peugeot, Coventry South East Action Group and the NHS Trust. The community nutritionists also worked with voluntary organisations including Coventry voluntary service, MIND, Shadow, Relate and the national energy service, plus local community based organisations, for example Asian Women Training.Methodology
Community nutritionists work with all elements of the population including parents and children. Key areas of their work include:- Coordinating and running healthy eating sessions based on the balance of good health.
- Teaching cooking skills.
- Producing a local cookbook to reinforce healthy eating messages.
Nutritionists work on a one to one level with individuals who lack confidence and need someone to visit them at home to help in drawing them out into the community.
Initially some of the community nutritionists posts were funded through Single Regeneration Budget and also urban funding, however all the posts now receive mainstream funding, with the aim to create awareness of the link between of food and health.
Mainstream funding was made available through the Environmental Health Service Plan indicating the need for full time permanent community nutritionists. At present there are 4 full time and 2 part time community nutritionists.
The nutritionists have also instigated leverage with time given to the project by other professionals.
All the community nutritionists are trained to either degree or masters level in nutrition.
Nifty Nosh Project
The idea for the cookbook came about as the nutritionists wanted simple, cheap recipes and meal ideas to promote in the project.
Recipes were compiled from people living in the area covered by the project (i.e. South East Coventry). When recipes were received they were tested and changes made to make the meals more nutritious.
The Heart of England Co-operative Society donated prizes for everyone whose recipe was chosen to be included in the recipe book.
The recipe book’s aim is:
"This recipe book is full of cheap, quick, easy and nutritious recipes. They have all been tried and tested and are fool proof, so if you are new to cooking, give them a go; and if you are an experienced cook, add to the dishes you prepare for yourself or your family."
Coventry City Council received a grant for this specific project from the Coventry community plan fund and Peugeot. The funding received from Peugeot helped in producing and printing the cookbook. Coventry South East Action Group contributed to the project by accessing funding through the NHS Trust Health Improvement Programme.
Evaluation
Researchers from Warwick University have carried out an external evaluation. The results are available as a download to this case study.
The evaluation answers the following questions:
- Whether the one to one sessions in the community really did make a difference.
- Is the community being involved as much as possible?
- Do the community nutritionists work closely as a team?
- Can this project be produced as a national learning aid?
- Can people learn from Coventry City Council?
- Is the Partnership maintained?
Lessons Learned
It will take many years to see the outcomes of the project in terms of health improvements and the local community has now lost initial interest in the project.
Each of the agencies involved wanted to impose their areas of priority on the project.
The desired achievement of home-based work with the community is time consuming and stressful. Large amounts of time have been taken to appraise the project and gain approval of funding streams.
Have identified a need for follow up of beneficiaries after a certain period of time to check the impact of the project on their lives.
Contact details
Contact: Hellen MurusaliJob Title: Community Nutritionist
Address: Environmental Services
Broadgate House, Broadgate
Health Development Unit
Level 2, Room 213
Coventry
CV1 1NH
Other Resources: