Our guest blog writer this week is CFHS cooking skills study group member Gail Hutchison. Gail (ANutr) has been running community cooking skills courses for Edinburgh Community Food since 2013 and has recently begun to run these for NHS Forth Valley’s Nutrition and Dietetic Health Improvement Team on a part-time basis. In both areas, Gail …
CFHS updates
Cooking skills blog 11. Recruiting and retaining ‘vulnerable’ course participants
Also posted in CFHS Blog, Recruiting and working with vulnerable groups
Areas of Work: Cookery skills, Information provision
CFHS Development fund is closing soon
Community Food and Health (Scotland) has an annual development fund open to groups and agencies in Scotland who would like to improve access to, and take up of, a healthy, varied and balanced diet. Funding from £500 to £2000 is available. The closing date is Friday 5 August. Guidance and applications forms are available here
Also posted in Funding news
Area of Work: Funding
CFHS Capacity building fund (up to £500) open
The aim of this fund is to support groups and agencies running food and health activities to build the knowledge, skills and expertise they need to help deliver these better. Groups can apply for funding for training or learning opportunities for staff, volunteers, or management committee or board members. There is no closing date for …
Also posted in Funding news, News
Areas of Work: Food and nutrition training, Funding
Cooking skills blog 10: Finding out if your cooking skills courses are ‘working’: How can you improve your questionnaires?
Questionnaires are a popular way of evaluating cooking skills courses. If they are planned well, they are a quick and easy to use and can be used for two different purposes, i.e. to find out: What difference your course has made to participants (e.g. has it improved their cooking skills or eating habits?) or/and; What …
Also posted in CFHS Blog, Finding out if your cooking skills courses are working
Areas of Work: Cookery skills, Information provision, Research and evaluation
Cooking skills blog 9. The new eatwell guide, the REHIS accredited cooking skills course and ‘training for trainers’
Last week I attended the Royal Environmental Health Institute of Scotland (REHIS) event for those that teach the accredited Elementary Cooking skills course and other REHIS food and health courses. For those that are not aware of the REHIS Elementary Cooking skills course – it is short (six-hours minimum); it is suitable for people with …
Also posted in CFHS Blog, Cooking course resources
Areas of Work: Cookery skills, Food and nutrition training, Information provision
Improving food and health for adults with learning disabilities – learning from policy, research, and practice in the community
Meeting notes Twenty-five people from across Scotland (specialist dietitians, learning disability service providers, community and voluntary sector staff) attended this meeting to hear about and discuss food and health activities. The audience heard from: Dr Craig Melville from the Institute of Health and Wellbeing who discussed obesity and the Institute’s weight management programme for people …
Also posted in Events and conferences
Area of Work: Learning disability
Cooking skills blog 8 – How do you find out if your cooking skills courses are ‘working’?
In the last blog, I talked about focusing on what it is you want your cooking courses to achieve. Once you have done that, you need to think about how to find out if your course has (or hasn’t) achieved this. For many groups, it will be enough to have an informal discussion with participants …
Also posted in CFHS Blog, Finding out if your cooking skills courses are working
Areas of Work: Cookery skills, Information provision, Research and evaluation
Cooking skills blog 7 – What difference do you hope your cooking skills courses will make?
The answer may depend on what the people (participants) attending your course want to get out of it and what you (and your funders) hope it will achieve. The amount of time you have, and participant to practitioner ratio may also have an effect on what outcomes you might be able to achieve. Spending a …
Also posted in CFHS Blog, Finding out if your cooking skills courses are working
Areas of Work: Cookery skills, Information provision
Blog 6 – What does it mean to support ‘vulnerable’ people on your cooking skills course?
Our cooking skills study group are running their cooking skills courses for ‘vulnerable people’ and/or ‘parents (or carers)’ living on a ‘low-income’. As we’ll be gathering collective evaluation information, we had to agree on how we define these categories. Defining ‘vulnerable’ wasn’t easy. It can include many people, from a recently widowed older man to …
Also posted in CFHS Blog, Recruiting and working with vulnerable groups
Areas of Work: Cookery skills, Information provision
Booking now available for CFHS community cafe networking event September 2016
Community Food and Health (Scotland) is holding another community café networking event on Thursday 1 September, in the Pearce Institute in Glasgow from 11 am to 3.30 pm. Anyone working in or with a community café – volunteer, staff member, manager, or board / management committee member – is welcome to apply for a place …