NHS Forth Valley's Public Health Nutrition Team Annual Report 2022 - 2023

Table Of Content

About Our Work

Our Public Health Nutrition Team is part of NHS Forth Valley's Healthier Future Team. Our work has a focus on early intervention and prevention of ill health through promotion of good food and nutrition, particularly where access to healthy food is poor or limited.

We work with a wide range of partners and stakeholders from voluntary organisations, community groups, local authority, education, health and social care partnerships and NHS Sectors, as well as liaising closely with our colleagues from the oral health and health improvement teams from both Health and Social Care Partnerships

We aim to ensure that staff, volunteers and communities have access to the knowledge, skills and resources needed to enable others to eat well and develop a healthy relationship with food.

We provide funding, training, practical resources and advisory support to staff and volunteers who can act on addressing food issues.

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Read more about our work: Our Service on a Page

Meet Our Team

RHONDA ARCHIBALD

HEALTH IMPROVEMENT (NUTRITION) LEAD

DONNA RODGERS

HEALTH IMPROVEMENT SPECIALIST

ELLEN COWIE

ELLEN COWIE

COMMUNITY FOOD DEVELOPMENT WORKER

MAIRI WRIGHT

FIDELMA GUEST

HEALTH IMPROVEMENT SPECIALIST DIETITIAN

LESLEY HETHERINGTON

COMMUNITY DIETITIAN AND INFANT FEEDING COORDINATOR

MAIRI WRIGHT

COMMUNITY FOOD DEVELOPMENT WORKER

PAMELA MURRAY

PUBLIC HEALTH DIETITIAN

WENDY HANDLEY

COMMUNITY FOOD DEVELOPMENT WORKER - PRISONS

Training & Building Capacity in our local Communities

Our team offers and delivers a range of food, nutrition and cooking courses to our partner organisations, local authorities and community groups, building capacity of their staff and volunteers, who can then deliver their own training with the knowledge and skills they have gained.

Training Across 3 local Prisons

Training & Building Capacity

Working in partnership with Active 8 Sauchie

During the Covid 19 lockdown our team worked in partnership with Active 8 Sauchie and supported them to run online cooking sessions with families via social media. To motivate and encourage families to cook at home, they asked families to engage through social media - by sharing recipes and posting photos of the meals they created

From September to December 2020, the NHS FV Why Weight Team delivered a Supper Club in collaboration with Active Kids from Alloa, who provided activity sessions. The supper club provided an opportunity for volunteers to cook a meal and gave families the opportunity to sit and eat together.

Following on from the success of the supper club, our Public Health Nutrition Team delivered training to volunteers from Active 8 Sauchie on REHIS Elementary Cooking & REHIS Introduction to Food and Health, during the first few months of 2021.

After gaining their REHIS qualifications and awards, Active 8 Sauchie progressed to setting up their own Supper Club with support from St Mungos Church. The group were keen to grow their own vegetables for Christmas dinner and with support from our team during Aug – Dec 2021, the planting began.

During Challenge Poverty Week (Oct 2022), volunteers from Active 8 Sauchie attended and successfully completed Community Cooking Training delivered by our Public Health Nutrition Team.

Active 8 Sauchie are now supporting other local community groups such as Sunnyside School Supper Club. They provide the Arts and Crafts activities and are trained to support the cooking too This connection has helped to support volunteers at Sunnyside and as a result some families have joined Active 8 Sauchie and their children benefit from the Youth Club activities provided there.

Training & Building Capacity

Delivering training to prison staff

Nutrition Awareness and REHIS Food and Health Training

During a recent National Prison Care Network training needs analysis across Prison Healthcare in Scotland, a need for training in nutrition, food and health was identified.

The Public Health Nutrition Team developed a bespoke food and nutrition training package and offered it to all healthcare staff across the 3 Forth Valley prisons. REHIS Introduction to Food and Health was delivered as part of the training, as an incentive for staff to attend, and after completing a learning check quiz, all staff that attended received a REHIS qualification and award.

32 Prison Healthcare Staff Attended

Thanks, this information will help me educate my patients on healthy eating and now I know where to access information!

'I'd like to create a Nutrition Awareness Board in the Health Centre and will email all my colleagues the resources and links from today'

Early Years Nutrition and Porridge Pot Training

Early years nutrition training was delivered to 5 members of staff from the visitor centre and SPS Family Contact Officers from HMPYOI Polmont. The morning session was engaging and interactive and included an Early Years Nutrition Quiz and a practical 'porridge' cooking competition!

Following on from the training the visitor centre was awarded a funding agreement from our team to deliver an 'Eat Breakfast Every Day' Campaign and 35 Porridge Pot packs were on offer to visiting families.

Social Media Engagement

3,374 Post Impressions

3,098 Impressions

We received funding to enable us to run the 'Porridge Pot' project, this meant we could provide families with a canvas bag with the necessary equipment and ingredients to make a variety of porridge based recipes, along with a copy of the children's book. This was a fun way to introduce porridge to many of the families coming to the prison, who would not previously have been used to cooking with porridge oats, giving them a cheap, healthy and easy snack option.

Please get in touch if you'd like to see the evaluation report

Sample Porridge Pack for Prison Visitor Centre to distribute- to families

Porridge Packs

Prison Staff getting creative with Porridge

Training & Building Capacity

Success Stories

In the past our team have partnered with Stirling Council and trained some of their staff from the Stirling Learning and Employability Team in REHIS How to Run a Cooking Group. With the support of their Line Manager and with ongoing training and support from our team, this has led to them setting up as their own REHIS Centre. They are now fully registered with REHIS and can now train their own staff in the following REHIS courses: Practical Cooking, Elementary Food & Health and How to Run a Cooking Group.

Caroline has recently trained staff from the Senior Phase and Youth Participation Team who are keen to roll out cooking for their youth groups. A recent survey by the team revealed that the young people wanted to learn cooking skills and do more physical activity at their clubs. Our team continue to support this work through providing further training, resources and advisory support.

I know the benefit of cooking with groups, not only in skills learned but also the positive impact on participants’ general wellbeing. I am delighted to have been able to share these skills and support the Youth Participation Team to provide similar opportunities for young people across Stirling. I simply would not have the capacity to deliver volume of projects to meet demand so it is great to work with like-minded colleagues across other teams to increase capacity. They also know their participants best so can deliver projects tailored to the needs of their groups.

Caroline Carmichael, Learning and Employability Officer, Stirling Council

Dylan Brownlee's Journey to a Job

Our Team have worked in partnership with Stirling Community Enterprise offering their staff various food and cooking training courses and qualifications. Dylan Brownlee was employed on a 6 months back to work contract as a peer support for lived experience mentor, when he approached our team with a keen interest to develop his cooking skills. Dylan attended a number of food, health and cooking training courses and he successfully managed to gain nationally recognised qualifications and certificates in the following REHIS Courses:- Elementary Cooking, Elementary Food & Health and Elementary Food Hygiene. He now uses the skills and knowledge that he has gained to engage with his clients through the delivery of food and cooking sessions. He offers support around budgeting skills and opportunities to cook from scratch and to make healthy meals go further. Dylan has worked very hard at gaining these qualifications and he has a real passion for what he does. Following on from his training, he is now a full time member of staff with Stirling Community Enterprise and is continually investigating how he can use his new knowledge and skills and share them with others. He has set up 'Soup & a Chat' with a group of volunteers and has undergone further REHIS How to Run A Cooking Group Training.

staff members awarded REHIS Cooking with Groups accreditation.

Grants & Funding Agreements

Food activity grants were awarded across Forth Valley 2022 - 2023

Grants by Group Setting

Over individuals including children, young people and families were reached through our food grants.

Grants by Area

CommunityGroups

YouthProjects

BAMEGroup

LeavingCareTeam

Number of Grants Awarded

Social Media

Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, word of mouth and email were used to share details of our Community Food Grants, with local groups and organisations.

Grants & Funding Agreements

A flavour of some of the food projects delivered:

Bannockburn Primary School

Community Outdoor Intergeneration Learning Project - Learners from P1 to P7 as well as residents from a local care home - plan to set up a child / parent cooking club.

Fallin Primary School - See Case Study on Page 12

Set up a P6 & P7 Lunch Club - Encouraging pupils to engage in food preparation and learning the social skills of eating together.

Allans Nursery

Children and their families were invited to an outdoor learning event. 75 people attended. Families commented about how much they enjoyed the outdoor fire pit session!

Langlees Early Learning Centre

Family cooking on a budget sessions delivered to 50 families.

Alva Nursery

Fruit and vegetable sensory garden developed with between 80 and 100 children and families involved.

Falkirk Leaving Care

40 young people took part in a slow cooker, batch cooking project

Westquarter & Redding School Community Project

8 older men took part in a programme of cookery classes.

HSTAR Scotland (Healed Scars Trauma and Abuse Recovery

Healthy Food for Better Mood - 4 sessions delivered - 26 women attended and over 100 people viewed online sessions. Women watching the videos shared feedback that their kids loved getting involved too. They felt that making family meals together had a great impact on their relationship, sense of belonging and improved mood. Watch How to make Spinach and Rice Soup.

Case Study Fallin Primary School Lunch Club

An example of good practice of engaging pupils in food preparation and learning the social skills of eating together.

Aim of the project

To encourage children to learn about how to store and prepare food that they could eat for lunch, tasting new and alternative foods and learning about the social aspect of enjoying preparing and eating food together. The food activities take place in the school hall for 6 weeks for each group of 6 children, 2 groups running each year. This is an ongoing project and the food activity grant from NHS Forth Valley was used to buy cooking equipment and the ongoing food purchase costs was and will continue to be met from the school's budget.

Who benefited? 24 Children

Benefits achieved:

as well as their extended families as the children share their learning experiences at home. Increased children's knowledge around food hygiene, safe storage of food. Introducing and tasting new foods. Developing children's food preparation skills and techniques. Social interaction and experiences developed when the children were cooking and eating together.

Children could take home their learning experiences and share them with their extended families.

I learned to be safe when cooking and how to use sharp knives properly. I also learned how to be safe around the cooker when we are using them and boiling water

Lunch club was a happy place with lots of fun

I learned how to chop an onion properly. I was a bit scared using the sharp knives

I learned to make basic food that I can try to make at home

I loved making the cheese and ham toasties

Case Study Camelon Connect - Cyrenians

Dignity and Food Workshop

Cyrenians partnered with Tamfourhill Community Centre and Rainbow Ladies Muslim Group to deliver a food event to a diverse group of local community members. The aim of the event was to bring together members of the local community, including newcomers and refugees and to teach and demonstrate how to make a cheaper alternative Fakeaway - Healthy Pakora. This would be a fun and interactive event that could teach new skills, increase confidence in the kitchen, as well as discussing ways to reduce food shopping costs.

Who benefited? 14 individuals attended plus 14 fakeaway ingredients & recipe bags given

This allowed participants to use their new cooking skills at home and spread their learning onto others.

Vegetable Pakora Recipe

Ingredients

2 potatoes

1 onion

100g gram flour

I handful of spinach - washed

1 heaped tablespoon of frozen peas

1 tablespoon of dried fenugreek leaves

Pinch of salt

½ teaspoon of chilli powder

1 teaspoon of coriander seeds

1 teaspoon of cumin seeds

Water – enough to form a soft dough

Method

Cut potatoes and onions into slices. Mix together all other ingredients in a bowl. Add potatoes and onions and a little water. Mix together to form a soft dough.

Take a tablespoon of mixture and drop gently into pan of hot vegetable oil. Cook for few minutes each side until golden brown.

Tasty pakora is ready!

I had no idea that this was going to be so easy, I'll be making this once a week from now on. No more takeaways for me.

You've managed to sneak in 4 portions of different vegetables without me realising that. I usually hate veg but his is mega!

This was a great session to deliver from our centre, so good to see our diverse community coming together and having a bit of fun and learning new skills together

We have a new young person's service starting and we are about to start some work with Ukranian refugees, so we will use the cooking skills and knowledge we have learnt during this workshop and apply it to other groups and projects.

Case Study

Stirling Council Slow Cooker Project

A Food Activity Grant was awarded to Stirling Council Parent and Family Support Team to support families experiencing poverty and to promote low-cost healthy eating recipes and routines for the whole family.

Who benefited? 9 Families were given a slow cooker along with ingredients for 2 recipes of their choice.

Feedback from the families:

It allowed them to plan meals in advance and source out affordable food which would last longer and be more filling.

What a great project, it allowed me to prepare meals in advance of the children coming home from school/nursery which gave us more quality time to spend with them before bedtime.

An unexpected outcome of the project was supporting wider family members with nutritious meals, who were finding it very difficult financially and were neglecting their own health need. Given the cost-of-living crisis and energy costs we were be keen to promote the use of slow cookers as they are shown to be a low cost and energy efficient appliance.

For more low-cost, easy recipes visit: Community Nutrition

www.nhsforthvalley.com/nutrition

Then choose 'Grow & Cook' web page

New Resources

Our team have developed a number of new resources, that support our work:

How to...Slow Cooker Picture Recipes

A set of 6 slow cooker picture recipes have been produced to address the growing number of requests for one pot, slow cooker recipes. Due to the cost of living crisis, more people are using slow cookers to make family meals, in a bid to reduce fuel consumption.

Make And Taste - Simple Snack Ideas

Make and Taste provides a range of quick and easy, non cook snack and recipe ideas for parents, carers and teachers to make with their children

The recipes are easy to follow and are a great way to engage with children and their families, around food, they help to make learning about food fun This resource is being piloted at a number of nurseries and early years establishments throughout Forth Valley.

How to...Cook

The aim of the ‘How To... Cook' guide is to give people the confidence to prepare and cook tasty, nutritious food and family meals on a budget. It is packed full of tasty, low-cost recipes that are easy to prepare and have been tried and tested by people who have not cooked before.

Stronger For Longer - Strength and Balance Poster

After receiving consent to use the original poster, Life Skills Officers, Physical Education Instructors from the 3 local prisons arranged prisoner focus groups to review and update the poster. Feedback gathered was used to reword and redesign the poster to suit the prison setting. Copies of the final poster were given to each of the three prisons to display within cells and the gym areas.

Credit and thanks goes to Professor Nanette Mutrie from Edinburgh University, for the original design of the poster.

Community Nutrition Website

We continually monitor, review and update our Community Nutrition Web pages. A recent addition is our Access To Food page - It is packed full of information and useful links to local support organisations including a link to Forth Valley Food Futures Sustainable Food Map and Directory. Staff can signpost their patients onto this page for links to free money advice, local Citizen Advice Bureau contact details and for help during the cost of living crisis.....

New Website

Why Weight Website

The Child Healthy Weight Team is also part of NHS Forth Valley's Healthier Future Team The 'Why Weight' Service helps support children, young people and their families work towards a healthier weight by making positive changes around food and activity

The website has 9 webpages including Meet the Team, Our Partners, Cooking At Home Challenges, Food & Recipes, Resources including online games and activity sheets to print off, Physical Activity and Further Reading and Training page with links to key documents and reports and training modules.

Contact Why Weight Team

If you have any questions, please get in touch: Call 07766 443353 and leave a message or text anytime Calls will be charged at the standard mobile rate.

Email: fv.whyweight@nhs.scot

Campaigns

Scottish Breastfeeding Awareness Week

13th -19th June 2022

To coincide and support Scottish Breastfeeding Awareness Week 2022, our team in partnership with the manager of the Visitor Centre HMPYOI Polmont and with the support of others from Scottish Prison Service (SPS) signed up to become part of the Breastfeeding Friendly Scotland Award.

The Breastfeeding Friendly Scotland Award is a national scheme that recognises the valuable contribution that businesses, organisations, and public premises have to normalise breastfeeding in all communities across Scotland. Through joining the national scheme this raises staff awareness of their obligations under the Breastfeeding etc. (Scotland) Act 2005 and Equality Act 2010. The award enables new mums and families to recognise places that they can be supported, and their babies protected when breastfeeding whilst out and about.

As part of working towards achieving the Award staff from HMPYOI Polmont, Cross Reach Visitors Centre, SPS Parenting Officers and Family Contact Officers and Barnardo’s attended a training and information session.

Sasha Groves the visitor centre manager was excited to be the first Prison Visitor Centre in Scotland to sign up to the national award.

National branded Breastfeeding Friendly Scotland resources and signage including window award stickers and poster were provided and were to be displayed in a prominent position. During the #ScottishBreastfeedingWeek22 campaign, we used this achievement as a news article to launch the 2022 campaign and both NHS Forth Valley and SPS Communication Teams agreed to share the story across their Social Media platforms.

Social Media Engagement

39 Likes and 10 Retweets

25 Likes and 6 shares

At Polmont Visitors Centre, we were so delighted to be trained in the National Breastfeeding Awareness Programme; the training and award has equipped us to support the many young mums who come to visit their partners here, and challenge some of the misconceptions around breastfeeding.

Sasha Groves, Crossreach, Visitor Centre Manager HMPYOI Polmont

Campaigns

Vitamin D Campaign Winter 2022

Food Standards Scotland organise and develop resources for an annual winter national Vitamin D Campaign. The aim of the campaign is to raise awareness of the importance of taking a daily 10 microgram vitamin D supplement during the winter months.

To support the national campaign, the team developed and delivered a local Vitamin D awareness campaign The focus was to promote, encourage and provide those most vulnerable individuals and families, including those from different ethnic cultures, and those experiencing the highest level of inequalities and poverty with free vitamin D supplements

Several local organisations and groups including those supporting the homeless, asylum seekers and refugees were approached to take part in the campaign. They were visited in order to share resources and information as well as being provided with 1 free bottle (4 months supply) of vitamin D for every participant.

To evaluate the awareness campaign participants were asked to complete a short pre-evaluation questionnaire to find out what they knew about vitamin D. After 4 months they were asked to complete another similar post evaluation questionnaire to find out whether they had taken the vitamin D supplement. NHS Forth Valley Communication Department were informed about the campaign and were asked to share information via their Social Media Channels as well as to staff via the Intranet page

I'm getting on great taking them, I'm feeling much better in myself, I feel it's gave me a pick-me up

Pre and Post Evaluation Questionnaires were translated into different languages.

Here is an example of the

Evaluation Questionnaire translated into Tigrinya

Sustainable Food Places Update

In 2022/23, our Public Health Nutrition Team have continued to act as advisors and provide support for the development of Sustainable Food Partnerships. Food Partnerships take a systems approach to food. This means working across a range of issues and levels that are interconnected e.g. food access and production, improving affordability of food, reducing diet-related disease, food education, catering and procurement, prevention of and redistribution of food waste.

The Health Improvement Fund (HIF) provided a grant to Forth Environment Link for £30,000.00 (August 2022 to March 2023) to support regional food co-ordination. A key priority of the work to date has been resourcing voluntary and community sector organisations working on food security, with £1.7 million investments being brought into Forth Valley for Food work linked to this investment.

Forth

Valley

now has Food Partnerships

Forth Valley Food Futures is the home of the region’s cross-sector Food Partnerships working together to transform our food systems to positively benefit wellbeing, health, economic development and to protect nature and the environment.

Forth Valley Sustainable Food Map

Visit the food map or their directory if you are looking for local food organisations to link with or want to refer people for emergency food aid or direct people to their local Community Cafe or if you are looking for local support services to signpost individuals to........

Note: This map is not managed or updated by our Public Health Nutrition Team

To find out about the work of each partnership and view case studies, visit :

Forth Valley Food Futures

Our Research Involvement

What is the purpose of the study?

A team of researchers at Glasgow Caledonian University, Stirling University, Aberdeen University and our Public Health Nutrition Team are working with people living in Denny and Westfield to look at ways to help incentivise, support and enable people to keep healthy, feel well and maintain a healthy weight.

Since the start of the project in July 2022, the team of researchers have been carrying out a ‘systematic review’ looking at the evidence around what incentives have worked with other communities. They have been spending time engaging and working with individuals within these local communities, getting to know what people like and dislike about where they live through door knocking and pop up stalls. But most importantly they’ve been finding out what they can do to support these local communities to stay well!

Recruitment and Planning

First up is the important part – getting people on board!

The researchers will then gather some baseline information and measurements around individuals mental well-being, weight and will establish and discuss any goals that people would personally like to achieve during the 3-month intervention.

Project intervention - 12 weeks from 4th September 2023

Individuals taking part will receive:

Support to set and achieve personal goals. Weekly soup served at a local community cafe. Encouragement and rewards for attending activities in their local area.

Participants should attend activity each week, in their area.

When people attend the pre-picked activities they'll get a card stamped.

Individuals will get the full reward if they gather a total of 10 stamps across the 12 weeks! Measurements (again!) and rewards - After the 3 month intervention, individuals will be remeasured (Height and Weight) and asked what they liked/disliked and if they have any suggestions that would support them to stay well.

If participants achieve their goal and attend the right amount of activities, they will be rewarded!

Want to get involved?

If you live in Denny or Westfield and are over 18 years old, then you can take part!

Please get in touch: Elly@stir.ac.uk

Sharing Our Work at a National Level

National Forensic AHP Conference

“Embracing Change and Innovation And Celebrating 21 years of Allied Health Professions.”

9th of June 2022

Our team delivered a presentation 'A Whole Systems Approach to Food in Forth Valley Prisons'.

Please get in touch if you'd like to see the presentation

National Prison Visitor Centre Conference - Families Outside

16th of November 2022

Our team were asked to deliver a workshop at the annual Visitor Centre Conference. Families Outside were keen for us to share the food related work, resources and training that we deliver and support the Forth Valley Prison Visitor Centres with.

Feedback from your workshop has been extremely positive and all who attended stated they had learnt something new by attending, which is always a positive!

Focus on Food in Forth Valley Prisons - Pamela Murray - AHPScot Blog

After sharing key pieces of Prison Work on Twitter, Pamela Murray was asked to write a Blog for the AHPScot Blog.

Read the Blog here >> Focus on Food in Forth Valley Prisons

NHS Education for Scotland Technology have produced :-

>> Guide to Blogging for Learning

JF Families Outside