Family home visitors (FHVs) from the Healthy Babies Healthy Children Program added food skills education into the services they offered to families in 2015 thanks to a one-time grant from the Ministry of Children and Youth Services. As a result, families are making more informed choices about what they feed their children and what they feed themselves.
“We provide practical and emotional support for families,” says Jackie Rink, one of the three FHVs with the program. “And since food is so important to family health and to the whole family dynamic, we saw this grant as a great opportunity to teach families how to prepare healthy meals and have fun doing it.”
FHVs helped families with gaining food knowledge (basics of nutrition, labelling, etc.), adjusting recipes, using senses (smell, taste, etc.) during preparation and planning meals and mealtimes. They even helped families get some basic tools to cook with including pots and utensils.
“How we carried out a food demo looked different for each family,” Rink says, explaining that each demo was personalized based on several factors including previous experience, food preferences, age of children, etc.
The initiative helped in unexpected ways. For example, families in the program tended to sit down more often to eat together, promoting more quality family time. And, by involving children in the food preparations, FHVs anticipate these children will continue to develop their food skills for years to come.
Although the grant is now completed, some aspects of the project will continue through 2016.