Health Professionals
To start a Community Foodies program in your area, you need:
- A local health service or council to auspice the project
- Commitment by management of this organisation
- To identify nutrition as a priority issue and have skilled/qualified staff
- At least two staff sharing a minimun of 0.5 FTE across postions. Ideally one of these staff should be a Dietitian and one a health worker with community development background. Staffing should be stable
- Commitment to Primary Health Care and Community development approaches
- In addition to the auspicing organisation you will need at least two other partner organisations to support the project.
One of the key features of this project is that it is multi-disciplinary in nature and the program is open to all health workers, not solely Dietitians/Nutritionists.
Program worker training, spanning over two days, covers the philosophy of the project which is based on the principles of community development and peer education. It also includes recruitment, retention, evaluation, sustainability and the training of community members, as foodies. Once workers complete the training they become part of the Alliance of program workers statewide and participate in shared initiatives.
For any new site enquiries please contact the;
Project Officer - Workforce Development, Liz Sanders.
What Are The Structures That Support This Program?
This program is supported by two groups:
- Tthe Alliance and
- The Strategic Management Group.
The Alliance supports the development and implementation of the program on the ground. The Strategic Management Group provides support and direction to the Project Manager on the strategic direction and sustainability of this complex project.
Partnerships
Partnerships are critical to the success of the Community Foodies project and partners in the project across South Australia collaborate in many ways. Examples include:
- Funding support
- Staff to support the Foodies
- Staff training the Foodies
- Provision of venues where the Foodies can work.
Partners For This State-Wide Project:
Evaluation Of The Project
The project places a strong emphasis on the quality of the work Foodies undertake in the community. Evaluation is critical to ensuring the quality of the project’s work and is multi–method in use. Quantitative, qualitative and realist approaches are used throughout evaluation processes.
As of January 2009, there are 122 active Community Foodies working across South Australia.
Below are some of the key outcomes from the 2008 evaluation of the South Australian Community Foodies project:
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Community Foodies are reaching disadvantaged groups evident by 73.0% of the adult participants in the Community Foodies projects who were surveyed having an income of less than $25,000 p.a. Furthermore only 43.9% had completed year 10 or less of high school.
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Most participants (65.0%) had not attended a cooking program previously and 63.7% had previously not attended at that venue. This suggests Foodies are increasing the reach of nutrition services and attracting new participants to nutrition programs.
Benefits reported by Foodie program participants included:
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Development of new cooking skills
- Increasing nutritional knowledge for themselves
- Increasing overall satisfaction with life
- Increasing sense of self-confidence and self-esteem
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Learning how to stretch the food budget further
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Learning about managing their weight
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Those participants on lower incomes (less than $25,000 p.a.) benefited more in relation to the number of fruit and vegetable serves eaten per day and in their sense of self-esteem than those on higher incomes.
Project Outcomes For Community Foodies:
- Improvement in general health status
- Increase in nutritional knowlegde
- Improvement in cooking skills
- Improvement of teaching skills
- Increased sense of competence and quality of life.
Project Outcomes For Organisations:
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44% reported an increase in the number of nutrition programs offered
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32% reported the numbers for their nutrition programs had increased as a result of the Foodies program
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32% had changed their nutrition policies or practices.
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