We focus on four complex health issues more prevalent in urban areas
With the Social Progress Imperative, we've developed the first neighbourhood level, health-focused social progress index of its kind.
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Children's health and food
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Since December 2017, we’ve been running a neighbourhood scheme in the Faraday ward in Southwark. This scheme involves delivering projects in a small area, to maximise our impact on local rates of childhood obesity.
Over the next three years, we’re growing the scheme to help 1,900 more local children achieve and maintain a healthy weight. We’ve invested an extra £1.2 million and will expand into the neighbouring wards of North Walworth and Camberwell Green.
To date, the scheme has engaged with over 440 families as part of our children’s health and food programme.
Much of the new funding will support families on low incomes to buy fresh fruit and vegetables. Our partner Alexandra Rose Charity makes this possible through their Rose Vouchers.
The vouchers are given to low-income families, which they can exchange at market stalls for fresh fruit and vegetables. Alexandra Rose Charity is making the vouchers usable in wards other than Faraday to benefit more families. They will also use our funding to test different price points and widen the eligibility to include children up to year 6.
The Charity is also exploring the use of an app to make the vouchers easier to exchange for market traders. Finally, they are developing their voucher distribution network, building on partnerships with 11 food market traders in East Street Market.
“ We’ve seen fantastic uptake of the scheme from local families. We’re excited that through the expansion we’ll be able to reach even more families, distribution partners, and to continue working together for the next three years. Our project partners at 1st Place Children’s Centre and East Street Market are already seeing the impact. Jonathan Pauling Chief Executive of Alexandra Rose Charity
We’ve seen fantastic uptake of the scheme from local families. We’re excited that through the expansion we’ll be able to reach even more families, distribution partners, and to continue working together for the next three years. Our project partners at 1st Place Children’s Centre and East Street Market are already seeing the impact.
“ The initial launch of the Rose Vouchers project opened up new opportunities. Families on the scheme have access to more fruit and veg to be able to cook healthier meals from scratch. Plus, they also show more financial resilience. Carole Coulon Portfolio Manager for children's health and food
The initial launch of the Rose Vouchers project opened up new opportunities. Families on the scheme have access to more fruit and veg to be able to cook healthier meals from scratch. Plus, they also show more financial resilience.
We are also funding the community-led social support project Parents and Communities Together (PACT).
With the support of £186,799, PACT will pilot its new ‘Cook, Eat and Take Away’ project. The projects is a weekly community cooking club where local parents come together to cook and eat healthy food. Families can take a meal home to their family and store the rest for later in community freezers.
Finally, as part of the expansion, we’re working with The Social Innovation Partnership and Shift Design to develop a collective impact framework for the scheme.
This will ensure better data analysis of how the fruit and veg voucher scheme contributes to lowering local rates of childhood obesity.
It will also aim to tell us more about how Rose Vouchers help change food habits in home eating environments, including how the fruit and vegetables are cooked and consumed. We can also learn how changes to families’ shopping habits lead to sustained behaviour change.
Want to know more about our neighbourhood schemes? See where else we’re working in Lambeth and Southwark.
We're investing £900,000 to make healthy food and physical activity more accessible to children, with the aim of developing a model that can be replicated.
Positively changing home environments can be difficult. We share the work we're doing to improve children's health in homes and early years settings.
How the environment influences what families eat
The scheme helps families on low incomes buy healthier produce from their local markets, aiming to put £80,000 into the local economy.