Food Matters

Background

A concern over the weight gain of some of the residents in a home for people with learning difficulties was shared by the manager and a relative of a resident (who was also a ‘change agent’ in the care sector). They found that staff who were responsible for food in the home did not know enough about healthy eating.

Hoping to help with this, the two set up a one day workshop and some cookery sessions to give the staff some help and motivation to throw out ‘junk’ food and replace it with healthy whole foods. The result was very successful.

They wanted to see if this success could be passed on to other care homes, including those for older people, and so the present project – Food Matters - came about.

Doreen enjoying creating apple crumble - a healthy version!

Objectives

We set out to trial an approach to developing good food cultures in six care homes, including elderly care and care for adults with learning disabilities. We aimed to encourage a ‘sharing the learning’ way of working between the homes.

At the end of the 9 month project we will have produced a resource pack to help other services interested in changing their own food cultures.

Along the way, we hoped to inspire managers to change their food cultures for service users for the better. We hoped service users would enjoy trying new types of foods, and more appetizing meals, and that this would stimulate further change.

The Plan

We planned to use the skills of 4 learning ambassadors, who were all care home managers themselves and part of the Bristol area Learning Exchange. These learning ambassadors would help encourage the 6 care service providers to take part in the project and to take a lead in improving the food culture in their own care homes.

We wanted managers, kitchen staff and other staff to take part in 2 workshops. We also wanted to try out food tasting with residents and staff at each of the participating homes, and to find out what the residents' views were.

Food adventure at Wapley Court

What Happened

In the end we had 3 learning ambassadors, and 7 care homes participating – 4 for adults with learning difficulties and 3 for elderly people. We also had members of a community nursing team coming along to the first workshop.

We held 2 very positive workshops where we shared information, ideas, and experiences.
We then used the skills of a nutritionist to help us organise taster and staff development sessions on how to prepare easy good food.

We are now reviewing these sessions and planning the remaining taster sessions. Along the way we have gathered a set of resources, some from the internet, but also some from sharing knowledge with each other. This will form the basis of our resource pack at the end.

What Was Achieved

We have engaged 7 care service providers in a journey together to look at food cultures in their service and how they can be improved. We have developed the food knowledge of all those taking part.

Feedback from the workshops was resoundingly positive with two providers in particular fired up to go back and make immediate changes.

At one home for adults with learning difficulties, service users were very vocal about how much they enjoy their new healthy menus and were keen to join in the cooking. Managers told us of the improvement in behaviour and mood of residents with learning disabilities after the introduction of the new menus.

We have the makings of a useful resource toolkit to share with other providers.

Unsung food heroes at Beech House

What Helped and What Hindered

It became apparent that one home – an elderly residential care home, had an excellent food culture and perhaps had little to gain from the project. However, they were willing and able to share their experience with the others. We needed to allow more time in this short project to recruit a range of care homes which could gain most from the project.

The project was helped greatly by the role of the learning ambassadors. The strength of managers sharing knowledge with fellow managers can not be underestimated.

What We Found Out

There is a real gap in training over healthy eating in the care industry. There is limited understanding of what healthy eating means and limited knowledge about how to care for elderly people with swallowing problems and how to tailor diets to individual tastes.

We have learned that the issues around healthy eating are very different in homes for adults with learning disabilities than in caring for the elderly. For example, elderly people enjoy the food from their past, food that is familiar, and often need to eat food that is higher in healthy fat content to put on weight where they are frail. They are also more resistant to change than adults with learning disabilities.

Adults with learning disabilities on the other hand often suffer from poor health and weight gain as a result of 'choosing' unhealthy meals. However, when they are given more healthy options to choose from, and take part in cooking, residents were soon happily enjoying new, healthier foods.

It became apparent that our second workshop was more geared to those in residential care than those working in the community.

Trying new food and sharing is fun...

Evaluation

We have evaluated all through by seeking anonymous feed back from workshop participants; by following up with calls to managers after the workshops to seek further feed back and any information about any relevant changes taking place; and by talking with service users at each of the tasting sessions to gather their views. Much of our feedback has been very positive. 2 homes in particular have made big positive changes.

Food tasting within elderly care met with some resistance from residents, who wondered 'what it was all for?' In the future we will communicate more clearly with elderly residents at the start of the tasting session.

The Future

We have developed the food knowledge of all those taking part and this is filtering down into everyday food culture in the homes. The homes can continue to be in touch with each other after the project is finished and can learn from each other’s knowledge and experiences.

They will have resource material to work from, in the resource pack, and this will also be available to other care homes who are interested in improving the food of their service users.

Any Other Information

The resource pack will be available from the SfC web site in due course. For further information contact the project lead, Anita Gulati, details below. If you would like further information about the Learning exchange please contact Caroline Tarbuck, Learning Exchange Co-ordinator, caroline@carelearning.org.uk.

Contact details
Anita Gulati, project leader
InPerspective UK Ltd
2 Cricklade Road
Bristol BS7 9EN
anita@inperspective.tv

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New Types of Worker - Food Matters