HEALTHY BEING BOX Skerne Park Community Enterprise Association Carol Miller Childcare Manager Julie Peacock Deputy Childcare Manager

Who we are? Skerne Park CEA and the Parkside Childcare Nursery is a community enterprise organisation and is run on a not-for-profit basis. Any surplus income generated by the organisation is invested back into the business and directly benefits users of the service.

The Need for this service More children are now presenting with challenging behaviour linked to poor diet First Hand experience of children coming into nursery with malnourishment / obesity Experience of the needs, hardship and varying levels of deprivation with the families

The impact of this service for families Not just a free box of goodie! Families will gain increased knowledge of the importance of healthy eating. Contribute to the reduction of the likelihood of obesity in young children and reduce effects of poor nutrition. Contribute to the improvement of dental health. Change family habits.

CONCEPT The ‘Healthy Being Box’ concept was essentially a healthy start pack which would be provided initially to all families who have children accessing the ‘2 year old’ free entitlement. At the point of putting in the application the number accessing the free entitlement was 180. The number now is in excess of 600 The box would be brightly coloured and appealing and could be kept and used for storage etc. once the information and products have been utilised. The distribution of the box would be linked to parents participating in Children’s Centre health related training courses to facilitate their increased understanding of healthy living.

SOURCING MATERIALS We anticipated sourcing suitable boxes for the ‘Healthy Being Box’ being reasonably straight forward. In practice it has proved to be complicated due to the relatively small number of boxes we want and the cost. However, we managed to find a local company who has embraced the idea of what we are trying to achieve and, by going with one of their ‘standard’ box sizes they have produced the boxes free of charge.

COST of the BOX ( Minus contents) Ink cost £96.00 x 2 colours Print plate cost £ Board cost £ Tool cost £ Labour cost £90.00 Total cost to Saica £ Saica being a family owned business were only too glad to help family’s in the Darlington area hope this helps with your project and good luck to all involved in making life better for everyone who receives a box. Thank You to SAICA

CONSULTATION Initially we consulted with the three Children’s Centre Heads about how we might link in with their existing training provision. The discussions met with a positive response and, consideration was given to the possibility of delivering a course specially linked to the box entitled something like ‘cooking in a box’. Discussion took place around the limited numbers on courses to enable them to be delivered efficiently and how so many families would get through if they all had to do the same one. Realistically it is going to work better if boxes are distributed to families doing any course around healthy eating. This needs to be finalised now the boxes are ready for distribution.

CONSULTATION We designed a questionnaire which we distributed to nurseries in Darlington who had ‘2 year old’ free entitlement places and asked if they would consult with the parent / carers. The questionnaire offered suggestion of what could be in the box and asked for an opinion on the suggestions as well as further potential ideas. Most popular responses were: Meat Voucher Weighing scales and Spoons Seeds and pots

FOCUS GROUP As the responses to the questionnaires were quite low we supplemented the consultation with a small focus group. During August 2014 we invited six parents who have ‘2 year old’ children accessing the free entitlement. Four parents attended and we outlined what we were aiming to achieve and what responses we had from the questionnaire. We discussed the box itself and it was agreed that we should minimise the cost of producing the box as much as possible while maximising what was spent on the products. It was also agreed that the box would be slightly smaller than the demonstration box and would be divided into quarters with an insert with each quarter having a theme: children; growing; cooking and; cleaning teeth.

CONTENTS The products for the box would include: Seeds and pots Children’s gardening tools eg: watering can Children’s cooking set Recipe cards Nutritional information Meat voucher – linked to advice on cooking cheap cuts of meat Weighing Scales Measuring spoons and plate – to help with giving right sized portions Toothbrushes, toothpaste and separate timer

DISTRIBUTION Boxes will be distributed via a voucher system which will be given to Parents who have completed a course promoting healthy eating and have a child accessing 2 year funding.

Skerne Park Community Enterprise Association