Did your programme deliver activities to educate participants about nutrition?
The programme delivered nutritional education across all six districts. A wide variety of nutritional education was delivered including cookery sessions, healthy eating conversations around The Eatwell Guide, growing fruits and vegetables and nutrition
activities and quizzes. Some providers also worked with external nutrition education providers such as Beezee Bodies.
The GCC HAF nutritionists produced a provider booklet which included detail on how to deliver a safe and inclusive provision, ideas for nutritional education sessions and activities. The GCC HAF nutritionists also produced a Diverse Nutrition Booklet to teach providers about diverse nutrition and the importance of teaching children about culture, religion, and respecting this throughout the HAF programme. Please see some feedback we have received below:
‘We do not have many children from diverse backgrounds attending our provision. The booklet made us think twice about whether we were being inclusive enough to attract children from diverse backgrounds. – HAF provider, The Forest of Dean.
The GCC nutrition team also delivered nutrition education training for providers before each HAF holiday covering a variety of topics including The Eatwell Guide, Diverse Nutrition and SEND. Through quality assurance visits we saw a significant improvement in the delivery of nutrition education throughout the county and providers have sufficient tools from the nutrition team to deliver a successful nutrition education session within their provision.
Link to our library of booklets: https://www.gloucestershire.gov.uk/education-and-learning/holiday-activities-and-food-programme/haf-cookbook/recipes/
Providers including Cook Stars, Harts Barn, Newent Initiative, Springbank have provided family cookery sessions.
Many providers who were unable to have parents/carers attend HAF sessions utilise the parent recipe booklets developed by the GCC nutrition team. The booklets contain a different theme each HAF holiday, family recipes and activities. Recent quality assurance visits displayed an increase on the parent booklets available throughout HAF provision.
We have made it mandatory for providers to include the parent booklets in their provision from Spring 2024. Below is some feedback from the most recent booklets:
‘Just wanted to say 'Thank you' for the recipe booklets - sent them home with the children and they all seemed well received. In fact, we had a good time using the crossword and quiz to keep a family entertained while they were waiting for their taxi (which was 2 hrs late) to pick them up after our cooking session - so, thank you again for that.’ - HAF provider, The Cotswolds.
Feedback from the Parent and Carer Survey has been utilised to shape our food provision in Gloucestershire. Below are some comments from our Summer 2023 Parent and Carer Survey.
‘Kids really enjoyed the lunch, and I was happy to hear that there was lots of fruit for a snack, not the easy to buy unhealthy food’ - HAF Parent, Summer 2023
‘The food was tasty, fresh, and healthy. Having options really helped with my daughters’ sensory needs’ - HAF Parent, Summer 2023
‘The rainbow kitchen that my daughter attended was amazing, they made so much food with the children and my daughter really enjoyed it. It was the first time that she had ever been happy to leave me in a new surrounding’ - HAF Parent, Summer 2023
We aim to facilitate more cooking sessions due to the popularity; however, we recognise that not all of our providers have the facilities to offer cooking sessions. Therefore, we have been working with sports providers, such as Progressive Sport to offer Beezee Bodies nutrition education sessions. Beezee Bodies are a team of registered nutritionists who support families to adopt healthy habits and specialise in weight management and behaviour change.
Across Gloucestershire, the children attending HAF now have an increased understanding of nutrition and food budgeting. Although we did not directly collect this information, we analysed the information collected from our 89 providers across the county. Many providers reported a positive increase in eating behaviours, understanding of nutrition and development of this throughout the programme.
We encouraged our providers to focus on teaching The Eatwell Guide alongside the most up to date government guidance. The GCC nutrition team also produced provider and parent nutrition recipes booklets, for ideas for providers delivering nutrition education and for parents. New booklets were developed for each HAF holiday and focusses on different topics such as food waste, sustainability, diverse nutrition, and budgeting, attached are copies of the provider recipe booklets spring, summer and winter and the diverse nutrition booklet.
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