Cooking skills learning exchange

1. Cooking skills learning exchange Welcome! Kim Newstead

2. Introductions • Introduce yourselves in your groups, and discuss: • Your experiences of when you have targetedwhat you do on a cooking course (to suit the needs of a target group, i.e. newparents, older men) • Your experiences of when you have tailored what you do on a cooking course (to suit the needs of an individual – such as adapting their recipes or health messages ) What are the advantages and disadvantages of tailoring and targeting?

3. Plan of today This morning What’s cooking in Scotland? Part 3. Background to our cooking skills work. Cooking skills study group Short break Small group activities: critically appraising your cooking courses 12.45 Lunch This afternoon Evaluating your cooking courses – Jacqui McDowell Small group activities Learning exchange 3.20pm Close and evaluation

4. Who are we? Community Food and Health (Scotland) set up 1996 to support food and health activities in Scotland’s low-income communities. In 2013 we became part of NHS Health Scotland, which is a nation board that aims to reduce health inequalities and improve health.

5. Why we are here today - Cooking courses • Popular with a wide range of groups and age ranges • Popular activity for those who apply to our small funding pots • Social aims/ fun activity • Support independent living skills/ employment skills • Learn about nutrition/ improve diet • Manage on a budget

6. Cooking skills courses – our role: building evidence and improving practice • Aim to improve practice – What’s Cooking in Scotland? Part 1 (2012) • Aim to help improve evaluation i.e. funding for groups to improve their evaluation – What’s cooking in Scotland Part 2. (2012) • Commissioned research in 2012 on cooking courses with families

7. And in 2014 we commissioned a review of cooking skills courses • Led by Avril Blamey with Jacki Gordon • A realist review… Rather than just asking ‘what works?’ We wanted to: • Learn from practitioners (trainers, facilitators, community chefs) • evaluation reports from 81 courses. • find out what works, for whom why and in what context? (Adults and families: skills, confidence, knowledge, intention to change behaviour, non-nutrition outcomes)

8. What were the challenges? • Reports from practitioners not ‘scientifically robust’ enough to provide enough evidence to link outcomes (increased skills etc) to cooking courses Solutions? • Reviewers linked the practitioner methods of running a course (or their ‘strategies’) to good practice – tailoring and targeting and behaviour change theory /concepts (NICE* guidelines) • And some community development / asset based approaches * National Institute for health and care excellence

9. For you -Cooking skills practitioners …..review conclusions • Reaching those that can benefit the most • Lots of good, evidence based, targeted and tailored courses • Well received by participants that had completed evaluation activities • Practitioners running courses differently – good reasons to do this • Fit with community development/ asset based approaches

10. What’s cooking in Scotland? Part Three Tools and ideas to help you critically appraise your cooking skills courses

11. Since the review - Cooking skills study group set up To build on the review and get more evidence, we have • Set up a cooking skills study group (late 2015) • 8 organisations – NHS, community and voluntary • All regularly run cooking courses and will run them the same way as usual • Agreed set of outcomes they will look to measure against when they evaluate – 4 courses each (32 courses in total) • What works for whom, why and in what circumstances? • Focus on vulnerable participants and parents on low-incomes • Focus on one main strategy: ‘what happens to the food’ • Critical to have evaluation information about individual participants in order to find out what is working for whom and why • Results – 2017! – Blog discusses some of the ideas from the work

12. Context of your course/ participants’ lives • Context of participants lives • Your course strategies (what you do on your course) • - Informal nutrition info –individuals prepare the recipes alone – eating together at the end – taking recipes home Mechanisms / behaviour change concepts – reactions, responses from participants. This is relevant to me My mates are eating the food I made I understand why I should do this • Outcomes – What difference your course is making for participants • Improved cooking skills –more varied diet • More likely to use the recipe again - increased confidence to eat with others –

13. Critically appraising your cooking courses – first task – how do recipes get chosen? When you plan your cooking courses, do you plan… Most of the time, the participants each choose their own individual recipes (may be from a set of recipes or they bring them in)  Most of the time, participants choose the recipes between them as a group Most of the time, the person running the course chooses the recipes

14. Critically appraising - how the recipes get chosen What do you hope this way of choosing recipes achieves for participants What challenges (if any) might you experience with one or more participants with this approach? What can do to overcome these challenges with these individuals?

15. Critically appraising your cooking courses – first task – how do recipes get chosen? When you plan your cooking courses, do you plan… Most of the time, the participants each choose their own individual recipes (may be from a set of recipes or they bring them in)  Most of the time, participants choose the recipes between them as a group Most of the time, the person running the course chooses the recipes

16. Critically appraising your cooking courses – second task – what happens to the food that has been prepared?  Mostly, participants taste or eat the cooked food together Mostly, participants take the cooked food home with them Mostly, participants both taste some food and have some to take home with them

17. Critically appraising –what happens to the food What do you hope this approach achieves for participants? What challenges (if any) might you experience with one or more participants with this approach? What can do to overcome these challenges with these individuals?