Fit to Eat
foodlink Communicating Food Safety Award winner
FSA Food Hygiene and Nutrition grant winner 2005-06
The Fit to Eat project aimed to work with a group of individuals who have learning difficulties and to be led by them in the production of a resource pack on the 4C’s (Cleaning, Cooking, Cross Contamination and Chilling) and healthy eating. The resources were to be suitable for use independently in the home with carers and also in a training/educational situation.
Aims and Objectives
The general aim of the project was to use the experience and skills of the client group i.e. those with learning difficulties to develop and trial a range of resources on food safety and healthy eating. It was also hoped to use peer education in disseminating the project resources once developed. The expected outcomes were the production of a practical resource for use within the home to raise awareness of food safety and healthy eating issues.
Partners
- Client Group, Connections Day services
- Community Support Officer from Connections Day Services
- Health Development Officer – Bath and North East Somerset Council
- Connections Day Services staff
- Lifeskills Learning for Living
- Bath and North East Somerset Primary Care Trust: an occupational therapist from the community learning difficulties team and a health promotion specialist
- B&NES Trading Standards team
Methodology
Workshops were facilitated by members of the project team and were attended by 25 clients. Each workshop covered a theme:
- Cleaning
- Cooking
- Chilling
- Cross-contamination
- Healthy eating.
Workshops involved practical demonstrations with, for example, the handwash kit, sorting different foods using the model of good health, discussions of phrases such as cross contamination, fridge temperatures and why foods need to be refrigerated etc. Issues were discussed with the Occupational Therapists (OTs) and the group particularly around language relating to health. Accessible minutes were written up from each workshop.
Workshops were held between September and November 2005. On completion of the first set of workshops a number of themes were beginning to emerge as being of particular interest or significance to the group. It was therefore decided to repeat the workshops in order to re-examine these specific topics and draw out in detail any ideas for resources. These workshops took place on a weekly basis over a 3 month period through to December.
The steering group continued to meet regularly alongside the workshops to guide the project forwards and members of the steering group assisted with workshop facilitation. At this stage discussions were also taking place with a local designer to design a logo and begin to think about the information to be contained within the packs.
In carrying out the workshops it became clear that cross-contamination was a difficult concept to understand and the decision was made to incorporate this topic into the other areas rather than independently covering it.
The later workshops were used also to discuss the types of resources which would be the most useful and practical to the group. 10 pilot packs were produced in time for the Christmas holiday to be trialled by clients and their parents/carers. They contained a wide range of resources so that feedback could establish which elements were most successful.
After Christmas the final proofs of the leaflets were agreed and decisions made about the best resources to include. Through the use of repetitive language the messages were reinforced through the leaflets and DVD.
Promotion
The pack was launched to clients and professionals at the Guildhall in Bath on 2nd February 2006 by Councillor Phyllis Gay - Chairman of Bath and North East Somerset Council. An invitation list was drawn up by members of the project team, a press release was issued and information was published on the Council and Primary Care Trust Website. Some 10 different “Stallholders” were invited along to give advice/information on other aspects of healthy living to the client group and lunch was offered as an incentive! Some 50 individuals were expected but at the event 80+ arrived. This event was replicated for the former Avon area by a launch at Lifeskills – learning for living on Monday 20th March 2006 and followed the same successful format with an equally good attendance. Participants in the development of the pack were local clients of Day services in B&NES
Resources
The Food Standards Agency (FSA) provided £10,000 towards the project. Members of the project team gave their time “in kind” as part of their working hours. 200 Packs have been created. All but about 10 have been distributed locally and a number will be made available through the local health promotion resource centre.
Costs included:
- Logo design, pack design, leaflet design and production of 200 packs.
- Payment of project worker to work with client group, produce drafts of resources etc.
- Filming for the DVD
- Payment of Lifeskills project worker for contribution to project.
- All other resources e.g. pedometers, thermometers.
- Launch event costs.
Evaluation
The project was evaluated throughout by the client group whose views informed and led the development of the packs. Since being in use comments received have been collected and the packs continue to be used locally by the community learning service. Their feedback has been collected but there have been no adverse comments received in relation to the pack and its contents.
Lessons Learned
If we were to repeat the exercise we would:
- Allow more time. The timescale was incredibly short and some members of the project team worked many extra hours to ensure the success of the project.
- We hadn’t anticipated illness amongst the key project worker which put further strain on the tight scheduling.
- Production of the DVD in-house – whilst the end result is excellent this probably was an ambition too far! However an additional benefit of this was that the pack was then also appropriate for people with visual impairment as the soundtrack reflects the information in the leaflets.
- It would have been beneficial to have more time to enable more thorough trialing of the pack on a 1 to 1 basis.
- Actually consulting with people with learning difficulties cannot be rushed and extensive time was devoted to ensuring that we really understood what they thought and wanted to include.
Locally the FSA are looking at providing funding to reprise the packs in an unchanged form for use by LAs and CLDTs and also to create a website to enable other areas to access the pictorial/written pack contents along with guidance on the other resources contained within the packs so others can replicate the contents
Contact Details
Other Resources:
- Chilling factsheet
- Cleaning factsheet
- Cooking factsheet
- Healthy living factsheet
- Tomato Dahl Recipe
- Shepherds Pie Recipe
- Spaghetti Bolognese recipe