Food for Thought: Food based training, assessment and intervention tools for carers of looked after young people

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Food and the social practices that surround it are central to our sense of self and our relations to others (Lupton, 1996). Food is deeply symbolic of caring and nurturing and ultimately of sustaining life (Morse, 1994). Research has highlighted the ways in which food is used by children and adults in their interactions (Jackson, 2009). Residential and foster care involves myriad tasks in which food can often play a significant role (Punch et al., 2009b). However, central to it are the feelings, relationships, issues of power and control that exist between and within the staff/carers and children and which are often played out and negotiated through a range of food practices. For example, simply a carer's knowledge of what a child takes in their tea may communicate a sense of belonging and connection. Thus, a focus on food can provide insight into how children and adults relate to one another, bringing with them their own histories, memories, feelings and strategies for coping. Food can therefore be understood both as a physical object, and a social phenomenon which carries and alters meaning through the different uses to which it can be put within everyday interaction (Charon, 2007). This project builds on the ESRC Food and Care study (FaCS). A key FaCS output was a handbook given to all residential children's homes in Scotland which aimed at raising awareness of food and how it is used in such settings. Since then, a number of presentations and workshops to practice audiences have been held alongside a pilot impact study. From this it was clear that by looking at food one could gain significant insight into the everyday world of the unit as well as to the individual lives of the children. However, staff were keen that further work be undertaken to turn the findings into a more applicable tool for enhancing their assessment of the child as well as considering ways to positively intervene. In addition, feedback was received from foster and adoptive carers who had heard or read about the work and who thought it had relevance to their role. A central concern of this project is to improve the micro relationship between individual looked after children and their carers using food to develop better understandings of behaviours, responses and shaping intervention and approaches to supporting each child (e.g. helping carers and organisations to think critically about why children might reject their food).The project team (involving a voluntary organisation, a private fostering company and a local authority) will work together on a four stage process:1. Devising a) A training package developed in workshops with carers/staff (adapted from the FaCS handbook) which will equip staff/carers with knowledge of the symbolic use of food and how this might be applied in the 'treatment' /'recovery' of children from past trauma/loss.b) An 'assessment' tool which focuses thinking on an individual household or child and their use of food.2. Deliveringa) Piloting the delivery of training and the use of the interactive assessment tool.b) Facilitating 'in house' peer support groups which would discuss the findings from the assessment tool and whose members would, together, think of ways that food could be used or food practices changed to improve the level/type of care being delivered.3. Evaluatinga) Monitoring the use of the training package, assessment tool and the ongoing peer support groups. b) Attending and reflecting on 'new worker' training as delivered by members of the peer support group.4. Rolling outa) National Launch event of materials.b) IRISS offering the training package, assessment tool and peer support model on their database. c) Supporting CELCIS to embed the training, assessment tool and peer model into more generic training for residential and foster carers in Scotland and to devise (along with University of Stirling) a CPD short course for the wider UK.d) Sending output briefing to FaCS database.