Back in Autumn 2023, the Family Support Worker for Coppice Valley Primary School approached their local PhunkyFoods Engagement and Development Coordinator (EDC), Beth, to work together on a family engagement programme.
This aim of the initiative was to support families with their health and wellbeing, particularly targeting those who may be experiencing food insecurity. The school sourced some funding from a local company to buy ten slow cookers, along with additional money to cover the cost of ingredients, to enable each participating family to cook their first two meals.
Two workshops were delivered over consecutive weeks, where each targeted family was invited to attend a 1-hour workshop during school time with their child/children.
During the workshops Beth supported the families to prepare the ingredients for the recipes. The fundamentals of food hygiene were covered at the start, followed by showing the adults and children how to prep food and use the equipment safely.
It was great to see pupils, who had previously participated in class workshops and cook clubs with PhunkyFoods, give perfect demonstrations of safe chopping techniques to the other families! The children were able to confidently and accurately recall the “bridge” and “claw” techniques – always a proud moment for the EDC’s when earlier sessions have been a success!
Each family worked together using the range of ingredients provided by the sponsor to prepare two full family sized nutritious and cost-effective meals.
The recipes followed were Chicken Curry and Sausage Hotpot (available within the Recipes section on the PhunkyFoods website).
As well as the practical skills, the workshop provided a great opportunity for the families to come together and enjoy some dedicated food preparation and socialisation time. In a relaxed and fun environment, it also gave them long term solutions to help them to manage financially and support them to learn new kitchen skills whilst making healthy family meals.
Beth was available to answer questions about cooking family meals at home, using cost effective ingredients and making simple swaps to help make meals more nutritious and appealing to children.
At the end of the workshop the families were gifted a slow cooker each and took their fully prepped food ingredients home, alongside the recipe cards to help them cook the meals at home. The parents were also signposted to the PhunkyFoods website for further resources and recipe ideas.
Sam, Coppice Valley Primary, Family Support Worker, said:
“Beth is really knowledgeable about food and nutrition and she interacts brilliantly with our pupils and their families. She is super friendly and approachable which really helped our families to feel at ease during the session”
The parents who attended also gave some lovely positive feedback:
“We absolutely loved the workshop and it gave us some quality time to spend together as a family which we don't often get due to busy work/school schedules. The kids loved following the recipe sheets and being able to get stuck in themselves, and finish cooking them at home - they really enjoyed eating both of them and being able to say they cooked them.
We have also cooked a beef casserole in our new slow cooker and have planned to cook chicken in there next week. Our old slow cooker broke early last year and we weren't able to replace it, so we were extremely grateful to have been gifted one from the school."
“Me and Teddy attended the cooking workshop and we both really enjoyed it. Teddy especially loves to cook and this was a brilliant way to teach him to be safe and still enjoy himself. He has told any family that will listen about it, and it has brought more confidence to himself around preparing foods and measuring herbs and spices. It really was a lovely class and we hope to attend more in future.”
“Some further cooking workshops would be good fun, I'd love to bring the kids to some of those! Many thanks again and we are so happy with our new slow cooker!”
“Frankie & his Dad loved doing the cooking class. We had the curry on the Friday night and Frankie has been helping get the dinner ready on a Sunday."
“Really enjoyed doing the workshop. Was nice to get to spend some time with my child one to one. Would definitely be interested in other workshops."
