Incredible Edibles
Dorset's Health and well being partnership were concerned that there was a lack of consistent information for health professionals to use with regards to weaning.
Sam Mitchell talks about the Dorset Food and Health Trust projects to research and produce a weaning tool kit for use by professionals. Which aims to help them deliver weaning advice to parents who are going through the process, including interactive sessions with parents, such as hands on cookery.
Aims and Objectives
Aim to:
- Research what was needed in terms of weaning advice for parents and health professionals,
- To devise a training tool kit to support health professionals
- To devise a parent pack with weaning tips, ideas and recipes to provide a healthy diet for infants, encouraging parents to cook from scratch using fresh ingredients and relying less on pre packaged foods which are aimed at babies and toddlers.
Partners
All partners are part of Dorset's Health and well being partnership, which consists of NHS, local government and voluntary sector members, funded the initial research and development through a Health Gain Fellowship.
The aims of this partnership are to commission health related projects to tackle health inequalities within Dorset. We worked closely with Health Visitors and Children's Centres to develop and pilot the materials.
Methodology
Research was conducted through consultation with health professionals about what information they wanted to have access to in order to aid the weaning process. The research included looking at current publications available and comparing those to what health professionals were telling us they needed.
The main theme that came out of the research was that health professionals wanted some practical tools to be able to use with new parents to show how easy weaning was and why it was important to rely less on pre packaged “baby” foods.
The Tool Kit and Parents Packs were devised through the outcomes of the consultations and has many practical elements to it with simple recipes for new parents to use throughout the four weaning stages.
The Tool Kit has 7 main sections, covering the following topics:-
- Diet and Health,
- kitchen safety and hygiene,
- getting started with weaning,
- dental health,
- family meal times,
- feeding problems and food refusal,
- recipe file.
The Parents’ Packs consist of a series of 4 booklets which cover all of these topics and have recipes to use suitable for all 4 stages of weaning. A trial was delivered through a local sure start centre. The Tool Kit and Parents Packs were amended after these trials before final printing.
Practical sessions were trialled and simplified in light of feedback and more practical sessions were added as a result of the feedback from parents and professionals.
The Tool Kit and packs have now been rolled out across Dorset, with over 100 Health Visitors and Children's Centre staff receiving training to deliver the tool kit content. The training consisted of a ½ day session, where the trainer explained how to use the content of the tool kit with the health professionals and then did a practical hands on cookery session, to give them the confidence to do this with the parents they are in contact with.
Promotion
Through Dorset PCT internal communications, a flyer was sent out to all Health Visitors and Children’s Centre, detailing the content and dates of the courses.
Resources
Funding was required for the research, development and printing of the Tool Kits and Parents Packs. Staff time was the main resource used. A venue was required for the training and a basic set of weaning equipment was collated.
Evaluation
Evaluation is being carried out on the tool kit and the training.
All 11 training sessions were fully booked and feedback on the tool kit from them has been outstanding. The majority of the feedback centred on the pleasure of having a Tool Kit which will aid practical sessions concerning weaning to underpin the theory.
Evaluation is focusing on the usefulness of the tool kit for imparting practical as well as theoretical information. Through direct feedback from health professionals in carrying out their jobs evaluation is centring on the usefulness of the tool kit to assess the longer term success in how they have used it with parents and how parents have found the information. The results of this are just beginning to be collated and evaluated.
Early indications are that the packs are already being used by Health Visitors and Children’s Centre staff across the County, and the results of the evaluations will be available once completed.
Lessons Learned
The original funding only covered the research costs. Separate costs had to be secured for the printing of the initial Tool Kits and parent packs. We had not anticipated that the demand from health professionals for training would be so great and this proved difficult to manage at times, with additional training sessions being arranged to accommodate the numbers of health professionals wanting this resource.
Future Developments
We aim to roll out access to the Tool Kit and Parents Packs beyond Dorset, to allow other PCT's to purchase them for their front line staff, information is available from our website: www.dorsetfoodandhealth.co.uk .
A training guide to using the Tool Kit is currently being devised and will be available in the near future.
Contact Details
Contact Name: Samantha Mitchell
Job Title: Director
Phone: 01202 849111
Email: office@dorsetfoodandhealth.co.uk
Website: www.dorsetfoodandhealth.co.uk
Organisation: Dorset Food and Health Trust
Address: Suite 7, Merley House Business Centre, Merley House Lane, Merley, Wimborne, BH21 3AA