Giving families access to healthy options

That’s why we look to work with a range of organisations – including social enterprises, statutory services, housing providers, children’s centres, nurseries and community groups. With these organisations, we can test new products and services that support families to access healthier food options and chances to be active. By trialling projects in our local area, we plan to build and share an evidence base for how to create healthy home environments.

A lot of conversations about early years are framed around statutory sector health interventions. But these services are already stretched. We’re interested in what initiatives will complement and support statutory activity.

Testing projects with partners to improve children’s health

We are testing projects in three key areas:

• Changing the home environment and helping families access healthy food to take back into the home. For example, we are working with Alexandra Rose Charity to provide fruit and veg vouchers for families on low incomes, to help them buy healthier produce from their local markets. Over the next three years, we plan to reach 1,000 families in Southwark.
• Embedding healthy practices in children’s centres and nurseries. For example, we recently launched our Early Years Chef Academy in partnership with the London Early Years Foundation. This provides nursery chefs with professional qualifications and is helping to develop standards for healthy food in nurseries. Over the next two years, we are piloting training modules with 20 chefs in Lambeth and Southwark, with a view to rolling out the scheme across the boroughs.
• Tackling the barriers that new parents on a low income face when accessing healthy food options for themselves and their babies. This involves encouraging the healthy development of maternal weight gain and supporting breastfeeding, weaning and infant feeding. For example, we are working with King’s College London to explore feeding practices in children who are born at an unhealthy weight. The findings will be used to inform interventions for mothers at risk of having babies with a larger birth weight.

Over the next 12 months, we want to explore other projects under these three key areas. If you have an idea for a project that will help families to access healthy food options for their home, embed healthy practices in nurseries and support breastfeeding and infant weaning, please get in touch.