RCC18 – Healthy Eating Courses
Proposer: Vicki Kent – East Marsh Children’s Centre
Funding allocated: £10,000.00
The Proposal
To create an extensive 3 month programme of life, health and wellbeing and confidence enhancing courses for 20 parents. The workshops will lead with low intensity healthy eating guidance and progress to teachings to support health, finance and relationship management and improving self -esteem.
The project has been in the planning and development stage for 18 months with the first course starting in September 2015. We particularly valued the Training provided by the Change Champions and RCC programme. Having the protected time to plot and plan the project away from the work environment meant we could include parents in the planning and it gave us a different window to look out of which expanded our horizons.
What we spent the money on!
Item:
2 x Cooking Courses for 20
1 x keep fit session for 20
1 x health & wellbeing course for 20
1 x “ What is Love” Relationship Course for 20
1 x Financial Course for 20
1 x self-esteem course for 20
Cost of crèche support at all of the above courses
Sewing and craft club
Category sub-total – £10,000
What we achieved
The core objective of our exciting schedule is to help parents to improve their sense of control of family life including financial, relationship management , overall health, well-being and self- esteem. The relationship management course is titled “What is Love” and covers understanding the importance of safeguarding children from emotional abuse, guidance on anger management and staying calm.
In our experience, we anticipate and hope that the impact will be far reaching and extend to enhance young family members and partner relations. Family relations will be improve and through the teamwork, camaraderie and friendships developed will reduce feelings of isolation.
Of the 20 parents, 6 of the mums have volunteered to be the course facilitators and after an induction course became facilitators and mentors to new participants.
There were some concerns that what was on offer would not attract the families that needed it however, 18 out of 20 who signed up did all 4 modules.
The programme has allowed the development of new relationships with other partners who share the delivery of modules such as Doorstep and Open minds who offer stress training.
We consider the Change Champions and RCC Programme to have contributed massively to our success. Without it we wouldn’t have been able to offer any of the course and we wouldn’t have been able to develop the 10 week Volunteer induction programme.
The course has changed lives and the use of role modelling methods means the effect is felt wider than in the centre. The Change Champion training has improved our marketing and engagement methods. People have changed their lives as a result of being part of the course.
It hasn’t all been easy. It was sometimes difficult to get participants but we found a solution. We would have liked more people but as it was a new initiative we decided to concentrate on quality over quantity. This cautious approach took more time but we gained a lot of learning. This has helped us put together a sustainable course which will grow in a sustainable and manageable way.
The community and cultural challenges have been the most difficult to overcome such as reliance on take-away food, inability to manage money and the logistics to get them into the timetable and take into consideration the crèche facilities and school age child pick- ups.
We don’t fear for the sustainability of the programme as it is a sustainable plan with a focus on recruiting volunteers to run it. We are very excited about the prospect.