Current work

Please contact us if you would like more information on any of these areas of work.

Mind the Menu: community food work supporting mental health and wellbeing

This networking and information sharing event for community organisations working with food in the field of mental health and wellbeing will will be held on 29 February at Discovery Point in Dundee.

The event will showcase the range of food work taking place across Scotland and the impact this has on mental health and wellbeing. It will be an opportunity to share practice and resources, meet others, be inspired, and think to the future.

The event is at the early stages of planning and we would welcome input from as many organisations as possible. If you have work that you would be willing to share either via a workshop session, stall or other input, please get in touch

A flyer (PDF 582 kb) and booking form (word 196 kb) are now available. The closing date for bookings is Friday 10 February. For more information, contact Sue.  

Maternal and Infant Nutrition

CFHS is continuing to support community food and health initiatives working with children and families to engage with and implement activities relevant to the delivery of Maternal and Infant Nutrition Strategy.

CFHS is currently seeking expression of interest to undertake an analysis of community and voluntary sector contributions to the implementation of the Scottish Government’s ‘Improving Maternal and Infant Nutrition: A Framework for Action’. The framework highlights the community and voluntary sector as a key partner with the NHS and others to implement and deliver the framework and improve nutrition and health outcomes for pregnant women and children.

CFHS is now about to undertake research, focusing on community food and health initiatives (including community groups and voluntary organisations) in low income communities to improve our knowledge of what resources (i.e. training and support) are being utilised to support their work in implementing the framework and a snapshot of where activities are happening.

Linking community growers, retailers and caterers

In Autumn 2011, CFHS commissioned Blake Stevenson to carry out research (pdf 1292 kb) into the feasibility of developing a produce supply chain between community growers and community food retailers and caterers in Edinburgh. Discussions are ongoing about if, and how, the feasibility study’s recommendations are taken forward.    

Strengthening food work with minority ethnic communities

National networking meeting

The next networking meeting for organisations involved in community food work with minority ethnic communities will take place on Wednesday 25 January, 11.00 am to 1 pm, at Consumer Focus Scotland, 100 Queen Street, Glasgow.

This is a follow on from the meetings held in August in Glasgow and Edinburgh. Notes of these meetings are available here:

Notes from Edinburgh meeting (PDF 107 KB)
Notes from Glasgow meeting (PDF 106 kb)

All welcome and help is available with fares to attend if needed. Contact Sue for details.

Capacity building training

Following on from discussion at the August meetings, CFHS is investing in learning opportunities for staff and volunteers who are involved in community food work with minority ethnic communities in Scotland.

In autumn 2011, CFHS funded two Elementary Food and Health courses. One course was provided by Edinburgh Community Food and ran at Norton Park Conference Centre in Edinburgh in November.  The other, provided by Anne and Kim from our team, ran in Glasgow in December.  Sixteen participants successfully completed the course and will receive certificates from REHIS.

In February 2012 we are offering 12 free places on the RSPH Certificate in Nutrition and Health course. All places on this course have now been allocated.

'Linking Thinking' in Inverness

'Linking Thinking' was a food and health regional networking opportunity organised by CFHS and the Food and Health Alliance (NHS Health Scotland) and held at Merkinch Community Centre on 26 October 2011.

The event was aimed at: people who have a role or interest in food and health from community food initiatives and food networks, social enterprises, food producers, the food industry, caterers, voluntary organisations, local authorities, health boards, retailers, food educators and others; and improving links between food and health activity across the whole food chain sector in the Inverness and surrounding area of the Highlands.

The event offered participants opportunities: to network together; to build local awareness and relevant links with others; and to share experiences and explore possible responses to current food and health challenges, eg. getting others to support what you do whether you are a community initiative, a food producer or a network.

About 25 participants took part and heard a variety of presentations from local initiatives. Eight initiatives hosted stalls in the marketplace and other networking and discussion session meant all in attendance maximised the opportunity to meet others.

'Linking thinking' heard from four speakers - Isobel Grigor from the Calman Trust; Douglas Watson, National Development Officer for Farmers' Markets; Stan Petrie, Catering Manager, HMP Inverness; and Brid McKibben, Food for Life Development Officer, Soil Assocation, based in the Cairngorms National Park.

Presentations (PDF 4 mb) from the event can be downloaded here.  

CFHS Annual Networking Conference 2011

Our 2011 free annual networking conference, Fare Futures, was held at Carnegie Conference Centre, Dunfermline on Thursday 3 November. This year the conference focused on where ‘where food sits within the wider health improvement and health inequalities agenda.

In the morning plenary session participants heard from Andy McCann, Bee Healthy Development Worker in Viewpark, Lanarkshire (one of the Scottish Government’s eight Healthy Weight Communities www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Health/health/healthyweight/healthyweight) and Lucy Aitchison, Project Co-ordinator from the Broomhouse Health Strategy Group in Edinburgh (http://healthstrategygroup.org.uk ).

Both Andy and Lucy will gave participants an insight into how their work is addressing health inequalities through food, how local and national policy influences their activities and how their activities can influence policy both locally and nationally.
 
A programme of 16 workshops was delivered by 22 community food and health projects and health intermediaries and included topics such as community allotments, community cafes, capacity building, sustainability, older people, cooking skills, evaluation, the healthyliving award, criminal justice, early years and a Community Food Initiative Demonstration Programme in Ireland. 

The afternoon plenary heard from John Lee, Policy and Practice Advisor from Volunteer Development Scotland in celebration of the European Year of Volunteering.
Speaker presentations and key points from the conference workshops are available below.
A summary of feedback responses (PDF 137 kb) from the conference evaluation is also available.

Learning and development programme updates

CFHS's learning and development programme for 2011/2012 (PDF 182 kb) containing details of training being delivered until the end of March 2012,is now available.

The programme includes a REHIS Elementary Food and Health course, a ScottishGrocers Federation 'healthyliving' programme 'training the trainers' session and a learning session about equality and diversity.

Application forms are available below:

REHIS Elementary Food and Health course (PDF 38 kb)
SGF HL prog - training the trainers (PDF 135 kb)
Equality and diversity (PDF 45 kb)

An evaluation (PDF 72 kb) of our previous learning and development programme is available.  

For more details, contact Anne. 

Work with retailers

CFHS continues to with the Scottish Grocers Federation (SGF) to roll out the SGF 'Healthy Living' programme’s training and resources to community food retailers - co-ops, outlets and shops.

CFHS is funding around 50 community food retailers that have taken part  in the training to promote their services in January and February of this year. A factsheet about the impact of the funding (PDF 207 kb) provided in January 2011 is now available as well as an evaluation of our summer funding programme (PDF 162 kb)) 

CFHS has also recently published Flying Off the Shelves (PDF 518 kb), which contains advice and tips for community retailers on how to make the most of their service.

For more information about our work with the Scottish Grocers Federation’s 'Healthy Living' programme,contact Anne.

CFHS is also on the board of the Community Retailing Network, which represents a number of community-owned shops in some of Scotland’s remotest communities.

Selling fruit and vegetables in hospitals and health centres

CFHS’s publication (PDF 903 kb) about community food initiatives retailing in hospitals is now available.

In early January 2010 CFHS hosted a roundtable discussion about food co-ops and stalls operating in hospitals and health centres. A short report from the discussion (PDF 80 kb) , describing the successes, challenges and ideas for best practice is now available.

If you are involved in similar work and would like to share your learning, please contact Anne.

Healthy Start pilot integrated approach 

CFHS, in partnership with NHS Forth Valley, is piloting an integrated approach linking Healthy Start uptake with community food and health activities, eg .fruit and vegetable stalls and barras, practical cooking sessions, other healthy eating and wider health improvement activity. The areas being piloted are Camelon and the Falkirk Braes area.   

The intended outcomes of a pilot integrated approach are: increased awareness and take up of Healthy Start vouchers; pregnant women, women and children under 5 eligible for Healthy Start support are engaged and supported to improve their nutrition; community initiatives and individuals supported to build their capacity in relation to delivering food and health activities that support maternal and infant health; communities encouraged to increase their consumption of fresh fruit and vegetables and sustain their interest in healthy eating activities through practical sessions; relevant resources provided to groups and individuals; understanding of the importance and need for supporting complementary activities to achieve maternal and infant nutrition goals is increased; an integrated approach to support maternal and infant nutrition and access to Healthy Start resources is evaluated and evidence to inform future activity is collated; connections between a range of partners involved in early years and food and nutrition activities at community level are developed; and whole community involved and participating in cascading down knowledge and experience. Updates on this pilot will be available here.

For more information contact Ger.

Community cookery skills - healthy eating and beyond

Across Scotland community groups and agencies deliver cookery sessions to improve health and tackle inequalities by improving food skills. In early 2011 we conducted an online survey with around 50 people and hosted a roundtable discussion with 21 participants to explore the experiences of groups or tutors who run cookery sessions.

The survey and roundtable discussion found that community cookery sessions are regularly being run in low-income and vulnerable communities and that these have an impact on food related skills and beyond.  

A fact sheet: Healthy eating and beyond – the impact of cookery skills (PDF 813 kb) is based on this information. Resources, toolkits and recipes for community cookery (PDF 175 kb)  provides a list of web-based resources suitable for cookery sessions in low-income communities. This also builds on our work in 2010 - A short introduction to Training the trainers – healthy cookery skills (PDF 267 kb)

Over the next six months we plan to find out more about the resources and facilities that are used by groups to deliver these sessions and about how they can be sustained. We also plan to explore issues around how community cookery is evaluated and find out more about the impact that cookery sessions can have beyond healthy eating. As part of this work we recently provided small amounts of funding for nine groups who are currently delivering community cooking sessions to develop their evaluation methods. The groups will collect baseline information, evaluate during or at the end of their cookery courses and follow up participants three months afterwards. The groups have been encouraged to use a range of evaluation methods suitable for the groups they work with. They will begin to report back in the new year and we will share findings in the spring.

For more information contact Kim  

A focus on older people

Micro funding

There has been a lot of interest in the microfunding offered to organisations to develop activities that use food to promote health and wellbeing with older people in their communities. This is line with the Scottish Government's Reshaping Care for Older People programme for change, with its emphasis on preventative approaches and building community capacity.

Some 35 organisations contacted us for further information and a total of 15 organisations have now received funding.

Work that is now underway includes:
- a home delivery service for older residents from the organic garden in Campbeltown.
- further extension of the volunteer shopping service in one area of Edinburgh.
- a new lunch club in Oban.
- a healthy eating, nutrition advice and food access project for older people in Wishaw.
- volunteer befrienders cooking with residents in sheltered housing in Bellshill.
- an allotment for people living with dementia in Glasgow.
- support to 3 black and minority ethnic community lunch clubs to develop healthy eating sessions, share food, recipes and cookery skills across different cultures in NW Glasgow.
- kitchen equipment to support the development of needs provision in Stornoway and for older people living with Parkinsons in Lanarkshire.
- piloting the use of a local hotel as a venue for a social lunch for older residents in a remote community on the Isle of Lewis
- adults with learning disabilities and older people meeting to share a meal and learn together about healthy eating in Thurso.
- pilot practical cookery sessions for older people in Edinburgh as part of the training package to support a recipe and nutrition resources that has been developed with older people.
- a healthy living project using storytelling, music and creative art to focus on healthy eating for people with dementia in Edinburgh.

Work is planned for the spring to draw together learning from all this work to inform our future work and to feed key lessons into developments in relation to the use of the Reshaping Care Change Fund monies across Scotland.

Meals and Messages - a focus on food services for older people in the community

“There are solutions out there, tried and tested, so let’s learn from them.”
Michelle McCrindle, Chief Executive of the Food Train, speaking at the launch of ‘Meals and Messages’ at the Norton Park Conference Centre in Edinburgh on 21 June.
 
The event, organised alongside Consumer Focus Scotland, focused on food and its importance to the health and well being of older people living in the community and the need to ensure that older people have access to the services they need to support them to eat well. As work continues on the Reshaping care for older people agenda in Scotland, food will be an essential element.   
The report Meals and messages (PDF 2190 kb)  - presents the main findings from independent research (PDF 862 kb) commissioned by Community Food and Health (Scotland) and Consumer Focus Scotland in 2010.

Funded by the Scottish Government, the study into food services for older people in the community had three main elements – a survey of all local authorities in Scotland, focus groups and interviews with older people who use food services and case studies in three areas developed by community organisations who carried out the research in their own area.
 
The case studies provide a rich picture of the wide range of food activity provided within the voluntary and community sector. This activity often supplements that offered by local authorities. In North East Edinburgh 31 different community based initiatives were identified that play a role in supporting older people to eat well.
 
The report contains recommendations for future action from the Consumer Focus Scotland board. These were presented at the launch by Nicky Munro from the board. Other presentations from the morning are available below:

Rhonda Smith, BAPEN,  Why Food Matters (PDF 384 kb)

Andrew Fyfe, ODS Consulting,  Main findings from the research (PDF 969 kb)  

The second part of the morning was a practice showcase with input from the following organisations:

Cearns Community Development Project. Isle of Lewis
East Renfrewshire Community Health and Care Partnership
Perth and Kinross Healthy Communities Collaborative
Edinburgh Community Food Training Hub/ Pilmeny Development Association
Moray Handyperson Service
The Food Train

Speaking at the end of the morning Marieke Dwarshuis, Director of Consumer Focus Scotland, concluded
“Community food initiatives delivering essential services in a cost effective manner provide a very strong case for investment."    

Lunch clubs - good practice examples

Lunch clubs are a key piece in the jigsaw of services that support older people to eat well. Many are organised and run by older people themselves.
The ODS research found that older people who attend lunch clubs often speak about enjoying both the food and the opportunity to eat with other people.

A bite and a blether (PDF 1476 kb)  is a series of case studies from six lunch clubs across the country in Lossiemouth, Stirling, Alyth, South Aberdeenshire and Glasgow. It provides a picture of different communities, both geographical and of interest, working with the resources they have available and mobilising a huge volunteer effort to provide a social meal for older people.

Previous CFHS work on older people.

For further information on any of these publications, and to be added to the mailing list for regular updates, please contact Sue

Social enterprise

CFHS is supporting the Federation of City Farms and Community Gardens and Senscot to establish a community food social enterprise network (SEN). Membership of the SEN is open to any community food and health organisation that is, or is aspiring to be, a social enterprise.  For more details, contact Anne.

An evaluation of the learning and development opportunities offered since 2008 by CFHS around the social enterprise theme has been carried out. The evaluation findings (PDF 213 kb) look at how useful the activities were in the longer term for the organisations that took part.

Community-based organisations working with minority ethnic children, pregnant women and families - training in food, nutrition and health

Access to a balanced, healthy diet is important in the early years of life. Improving maternal and infant nutrition is a key priority in Scotland and there is evidence that more food and health work needs to be delivered within minority ethnic communities. Experience from community groups already suggests that food and health work with minority ethnic children and families develops and increases their skills around accessing healthy food, improves their interaction with their children and reduces their sense of isolation from other local communities.

Funding has now been allocated to nine groups to carry out aspects of the following.

  • Royal Environmental Health Institute for Scotland (REHIS) Elementary Food and Health Course (up to a maximum of 10 participants)
  • Royal Society of Public Health (RSPH) (maximum of one certificate course)
  • Registration with REHIS as an Elementary Food and Health tutor (maximum registration costs of one tutor).
The organisations involved are meeting on 22 July for a networking and evaluation workshop to learn about and share their experiences of providing training and support to staff, volunteers and services users in food and nutrition to support their work with children, pregnant women and families from minority ethnic communities.

A report on their activity will be available later in the summer. For more information contact Sue or Ger

Beyond Smoothies: youth food and health networking event and publications

In 2009 we awarded funding to 24 groups working with young people up to £2000 to take part in the REHIS Elementary Food and Health course and develop healthy eating activities. Around half of the groups worked with vulnerable young people such as young carers and those that had experienced homelessness. The Beyond Smoothies (PDF 1417 kb) report shows what 20 of these groups learnt and gained from taking part in the basic nutrition course and delivering healthy eating activities.

In early 2011 we held a youth, food and health networking event, which was attended by around 50 people. Interactive workshops were led by groups that had received funding from us as part of the 2009 youth programme. How to get beyond smoothies (PDF 478 kb) gives top tips and ideas for promoting healthy eating activities with young people, all based on the experiences of youth workers from the networking event. Workshop leaders and those attending had used creative ideas to teach healthy eating activities. Our fact sheet, TV Dinners (PDF 127 kb), provides examples of how groups working with young people have used TV formats, such as Come Dine with Me, to teach cookery skills.

REHIS elementary food and health course and REHIS elementary food and health for carers of adults with a learning disability

Up until 2006, we worked with the Royal Environmental Health Institute of Scotland (REHIS) and other partners to develop a basic six-hour nutrition course - the ‘Elementary Food and Health’ course.

Since the Elementary Food and Health course was launched nationally in 2006, CFHS has delivered a targeted programme to promote it in low-income and excluded communities. This has included: low-income communities; organisations working with people affected by homelessness, the learning disability support sector and in the youth sector. A leaflet (PDF 2313 kb) provides a summary of this work up until 2009.

Our publication Food, training and learning disability (PDF 1011 kb) reports on this work in the learning disability support sector. Earlier this year we were involved in a working group alongside the Scottish Learning Disability Clinical Dietetic Network, REHIS and others to design a REHIS Elementary Food and Health course tailored to care staff working in the learning disability sector. CFHS supported this work by providing towards the costs of piloting this course. The four pilot courses were completed in February and the 'REHIS Elementary Food and Health for carers of adults with a learning disability' course is now available. We also recently provided funding for six groups and agencies to deliver this new course, and we will report on this in the new year.

More information is available from www.rehis.org  

Community Food and Health Initiatives with Minority Ethnic Communities in Scotland

CFHS and REACH Community Health Project jointly hosted an event in Glasgow on 13 December. The event was the official launch of the research completed earlier in the year into food and health activities with minority ethnic communities in Scotland. Participants also heard about the work of two of the healthier food pilots and spent some time thinking about how best to take the work forward.

Presentations from the event are available below:

For more information and to be kept up to date with developments, contact Sue.

Celebrating Outcomes

In January 2011 we launched Celebrating Outcomes (PDF 137 kb), a publication that highlights the contribution community food initiatives are making towards achieving national priorities and outcomes.

We hope that this celebration will emphasis, both for community food initiatives and for local and national policy makers, the difference made by community food initiatives for local communities. In particular we hope to increase the links between this work and national and local priorities for Scotland.

We will continue to highlight the contribution of community food initiatives and keep this information 'live', so if you, or anyone you know, contributes towards national outcomes or local outcomes, such as through Single Outcome Agreements, please let us know.

Small Grant Scheme

We distribute a total of £100,000 each year through our small grants scheme. Groups and agencies can apply for between £500 and £3000 to develop healthy eating activities with or within low-income groups based in Scotland.

The small grants scheme for 2011 is now closed.

See our funding section for more details.

Community food development workers

CFHS recently held a pilot networking event for community food workers. This event gave community food workers an opportunity to come together and share around community food work on a range of themes across a range of topics. Community Food Development Workers also discussed the key characteristics of their role and the unique value that they bring to supporting and working with local communities. Key points from this discussion and an evaluation of the event are available here:

Food, mental health and wellbeing

CFHS and the Scottish Development Centre for Mental Health have produced a joint bulletin on the links between food, mental health and wellbeing. The bulletin includes a look at current literature on the topic, together with five case studies of work in different parts of the country.

The organisations that provided case studies are Bridging the Gap in Glasgow, Dundee Healthy Living Initiative, Stepping Out in North Berwick, Glasgow Association for Mental Health and NHS Dumfries and Galloway.

For more information, please contact Sue.

The funding provided to community based mental health organisations to undertake training in food, nutrition and health has now been evaluated. A report on the outcomes (PDF 111 kb) is now available.

Exploring food and families in East Lothian

CFHS and Edinburgh Napier University are collaborating with two community groups in East Lothian to explore family food practices for families with young children. This research will take place over the next few months and will involve speaking with parents to find out more about the role food plays in their family and what influences this. As part of this work we will be exploring how parents understand and talk about food and its relationship with health, in particular for younger children. We will also be exploring what influences this, such as the wider family, the current recession and other barriers that families might be experiencing. The findings from this work will be shared between the groups to help them learn about the work they do around food and health. We will also share the findings more widely later in the year.

Community cafes

In 2010/11 CFHS mapped community cafes across Scotland. A map of 40 of the cafes identified is now available. We also commissioned a research report (PDF 952 kb),, which looked in detail at the operation and management of 12 community cafes.

Community food sector as a key contributor to health

In 2007 the Scottish Government launched its National Performance Framework, which includes one overarching purpose, strategic objectives, 15 national outcomes and 45 national indicators. This outcomes-focused approach details the national outcomes that the Scottish Government believes need to be achieved in order to make Scotland wealthier and fairer, safer and stronger, smarter, greener and healthier. The national outcomes also directly inform Single Outcome Agreements.

Considering this framework, CFHS has been exploring the national outcomes and how to highlight the contribution community food initiatives are making to the desired changes for Scotland. In order to ensure that the contribution made by community food initiatives is recognised, we want to demonstrate how it is made and what it looks like in practice.

We have heard from some community food initiatives about how they feel they are making a contribution across Scotland. We will be collating everyone's responses to create a picture of the sector's work and to showcase examples of how community food initiatives are making a key contribution across Scotland.

If you would like to send us any information about your project or organisation, please use the template below.

Contribution to national outcomes template (PDF 102 kb)  

Single Outcome Agreements

Single Outcome Agreements (SOAs) are now the key way that Community Planning Partnerships (CPPs) identify their priorities for local communities, in line with national outcomes identified by the Scottish Government. In June 2009 the second round of SOAs were agreed between the Scottish Government and CPPs, which set out the outcomes CPPs are aiming to achieve for local communities. In order to measure change within local communities and progress towards achieving local and national outcomes, SOAs include a wide range of different indicators, selected at a local level.

As part of the continual development of SOAs, CFHS, along with CHEX and VHS, have been invited to comment on the menu of indicators, from which CPPs can select the most relevant (or they can develop their own). The aim of this work is to continue to develop indicators that are meaningful at a local level and across Scotland. CFHS is using this opportunity to highlight the contribution made by community and voluntary organisations and hope to influence the indicators to incorporate this.

We have heard about one or two examples of people linking the outcomes they achieve to those within their local SOAs. If you have been involved in any work like this we would be really keen to hear from you and to hear about how you got on.

Community-based food and health activity online searchable directory

Our previous directory (hard copy publication) was very well used in the past by other groups wanting to link up with others as well as other agencies wanting to target specific groups and areas across Scotland. Already our new online directory is being used similarly. So far we have had a very positive response from community food and health initiatives wanting to be included. However, we know there are many more of you out there and we are really keen to hear from you. You can fill out your details on an application form (PDF 138 kb) and we will add you to the directory.

Fare Choice

Our newsletter is produced and mailed out on a quarterly basis. Fare Choice is another resource that we use to support community based food and health activity. Individuals, groups and agencies use the publication to talk and share news, views and experiences on policy and practice. We have recently expanded the newsletter and have additional space for projects to highlight their activities. We are keen to include as much activity as possible and can provide support to anyone wishing to draw up an article for inclusion. The next edition will be available mid March.