In Practice: Case study - Food for thought in the community

Objectives Children's centres are expected to contribute towards tackling childhood obesity and boosting family health and wellbeing. Elland Children's Centre is one of three centres in Calderdale that have developed services to boost local families' understanding of nutrition, diet and exercise.

What was done The centre aims to start promoting good nutrition and a healthy diet for babies as early as possible. It runs a breastfeeding support group to encourage new mums to breastfeed and stick with it. This includes providing advice from breastfeeding peer support workers and home visits.

All families with new babies are given a weaning pack, including equipment and information. The community nursery nurse also covers weaning and advice on feeding in Small Steps sessions.

The centre runs a variety of fitness classes. Family support worker Caren Parkinson runs a 10-week weight management programme for parents, which covers topics including family diet, budgeting and menu planning. Other projects have included advice on preparing healthy lunch boxes.

The issues "The main issue is getting the community involved. In some areas we struggled to get things up and running but we're now in our third year," says Parkinson. "More people are getting involved as news has spread by word of mouth."

Another problem has been the lack of cooking facilities. "We don't have a fully functioning kitchen for demonstrations," says Parkinson. The centre has managed with a small, table-top cooker, which is portable but not ideal.

At every stage the centre has asked parents and families what kind of services and help they feel they need. Parkinson believes this approach is important. "You need to find out what people want because they won't come to something if it doesn't suit their needs," she says.

Outcomes "We are seeing changes," says Parkinson. For example, she has just finished a weight management course, which 16 people started and 10 completed. Of those who finished the course, most of them lost more than a stone in weight, have started exercising more and plan to continue doing so. They are also now more aware of the need to ensure that their children have a healthy diet and lifestyle.

The centre is now looking for new ways to help families learn about healthy eating. A community link worker is in the process of setting up Big Cook, Little Cook sessions, which are designed to get children and parents cooking together.

TOP TIPS

DO

- Try to get new and prospective parents to think about healthy eating from the beginning so that their children get off to a good start

- Communicate with the local community by having meetings to find out what people are interested in

- Make sure it is fun and that people aren't just being talked at

DON'T

- Get too technical. It can be easy to use lots of technical terms when talking about diet but it is best to keep it simple.