We have been awarded funding from the National Institute of Health and Care Research (NIHR) to do some ‘development’ research and activities on improving the heath impacts of food provision in special schools. This will lead to outputs including a bid for a future implementation/evaluation project.
Background
Nutritious school meals can play an important role in meeting children’s right to food, and mitigating the impacts of poverty on children’s diets and lives, but they are not always available or accessible to all children who might benefit from them. This includes children with Special Educational Needs and/or Disabilities (SEND), who are more likely than those without SEND to grow up in families living in poverty and low-income, but might also have restricted food preferences or find eating difficult and need help at mealtimes.
Project Aims
We want to find out what ‘good school food’ means for children with SEND, what the opportunities and challenges are for food provision in different types of school and specialist provision, and whether it could be useful and realistic to adapt an existing ‘whole school approach’, called Healthy Zones, that has mainly been used in mainstream schools, to improve the uptake and impact of school food for children with SEND.
Project Activity
To do this, we are working with children with SEND, their families, schools, and people and organisations who work with them, using a mix of public contributor/stakeholder groups, school visits, interviews, survey and desk-based research.
Anticipated or actual outputs
We aim to maximise impact by engaging with stakeholders from the earliest stages.
Outputs will include:
- A descriptive report for NIHR Journals Library & accessible summary
- A coproduced logic model and blog for the NIHR East of England Applied Research
Presentations for academics and the school food community
Who is involved?
- Prof Rebecca O'Connell, University of Hertfordshire (joint lead applicant, corresponding researcher)
- Dr Amanda Ludlow, University of Hertfordshire (joint lead applicant)
- Dr Angus Holford, University of Essex
- Dr Louca-Mai Brady, University of Hertfordshire
- Dr David Wellsted, University of Hertfordshire
- Dr Laura Hamilton, University of Hertfordshire
- Mr Andy Feltham, (Expert by Experience/PhD student/Public Co-applicant)
- Ms Lauren Denyer, University of Hertfordshire
- Eve Blair, School Food Matters
Contact:
This study is funded by the National Institute of Health and Care Research (NIHR163616). Any views expressed are those of the research team and not necessarily those of the NIHR or the UK government.
