Slow Cooker Cooking Demonstrations

The engaging and interactive sessions helped to improve children’s life skills, social interaction, physical activity levels, sleep hygiene and oral health, in addition to promoting healthy lifestyles.   During June and July 2024, there was a slow cooker skills session led by Change Kitchen CIC detailing how to use a slow cooker, the kinds of meals that can be made, and the nutritional and economic benefits. Families were given a food parcel containing ingredients to recreate the meal at home/Temporary Accommodation, along with a slow cooker, recipe pack, and an Eat Well guide. 

The challenge

One of the biggest challenges we faced as part of this project was recruiting families to take part, and reaching the most vulnerable as well as those who are not in the most vulnerable bracket.

The solution

We reached out to families who were receiving support via our Health Activity workers and to families who were accessing a high number of food bank vouchers and receiving support via family support or were known to be living in temporary accommodation.

We then made this available universally to families within the district, by advertising this on our social media pages.

The impact

Tackling/Preventing Obesity

We ran healthy eating sessions with 70 beneficiaries (with up to 20 more on the subsequent session referenced above). Every family who attended the cookery demonstrations received a slow cooker and ingredients to recreate the meal, special knives suitable for children, and chopping boards in addition to healthy eating literature and recipes.

This provided learning and understanding of healthy eating for the children through purposeful activities and provided them with the tools and skills to be able to do this in their own home.

This enhancement to the already wonderful services added that extra element which has helped to achieve the outcomes set out in the application.  Through partnership work between the BCHC Charity and Birmingham Forward Steps we were really able to enhance key areas such as healthy eating, activity and oral hygiene for the young families in Erdington.  In addition, the Charity’s DAWS project (funded by Cadent, the gas infrastructure company) enhanced the programme further by providing slow cookers to each family attending the cookery sessions. 

How is the new approach being sustained?

We have continued our partnership working with Cadent to enable us to deliver more Slow Cooker workshops for the families we work with. 

Lessons learned

Families have enjoyed being part of these workshops, and through consultation have asked if a similar initiative could be planned using Air Fryers. 

Contact: Natalie Haymes 0121 752 1970