5 - Food

In this section please share details on your food provision. For example; did you provide children and young people with at least one nutritious meal a day? Did you work in any partnerships to provide food? What were the children and young people’s attitudes to the food you provide.

In Staffordshire we want to ensure that children, young people, and their families have a high-quality food experience from the HAF programme.

All providers are required to meet the DFE Framework standards around Food provision and register as a food business if appropriate. All providers have staff and or volunteers who have been trained in Food Hygiene and Allergens. We have ensured that provision of evidence of this is built into the bidding process.

Each provider prepares a delivery plan for each HAF holiday as part of the bidding process, and this includes wherever possible the menu for that provision. The menu is reviewed e and guidance is provided to ensure the food meets the school food standards, and is diverse and of high quality, using local ingredients where possible. 

Local examples

A HAF provider for Children with additional needs, which provides a riding school experience, has approval to provide healthy snacks and drinks only due to the nature of their provision. A joint risk assessment identified the potential risk of children feeding the horses with unsuitable food. As the provision is highly valued by all attendees, it was agreed that suitable snacks only could be provided during the 2-hour riding sessions.

A further provider holds daily cooking sessions with families, teaching and helping with cooking skills as well as providing an opportunity for the family to sit down at the communal setting and eat together.

Two woodland skills clubs, provide children the chance to source and forage for their own food, plus cook on campfires. One is next to a kitchen garden, which regularly invites the HAF club in to view and choose fruit and vegetables to harvest prepare and cook themselves. The provider reported back that one child could not get over how sprouts grew. This has been a great success with both children and parents.

A provider who delivers HAF clubs in schools has developed a partnership with the school’s kitchen team. Via the HAF grant, kitchen staff are offered additional hours during the holidays to prepare and deliver hot meals for the HAF clubs. The provider has noted that as the meals are like what children receive at school, less food is wasted, ‘and the children are less fussy’. The provider discussed their approach in a HAF good practice session. We have utilised sessions with County wide Head Teachers to showcase this partnership to encourage this collaboration in other areas for 2023.

Several clubs provide cold food, with agreement and on the understanding that they include the need to include fresh fruit and vegetables.

A provider that works with young people does not provide a meal onsite but issues vouchers for a meal to be used at local cafés. This has proven to be most successful as young people have a flexibility about where and when they can eat, local enterprises and businesses at risk following the covid restrictions are being supported and the menu for the vouchers is strictly managed around eating healthy food only.

Feedback from children and young people have been positive in the main. In quality assessment visits, children gave food on offer high scores, and a number enjoyed the fruit on offer as well as the opportunity to try new fruits and vegetables.

There are significant positives, but there has also been challenge. A very few Providers have shared, that children can be ‘fussy’, will not eat the food as it does not look right and at times parents have insisted children bring their own meals. However, providers tackled this by using fruits, vegetables and pulses imaginatively using them to create ‘bugs’ and ‘termites’ for ‘’I am a celebrity ‘’ type food challenges. This had fantastic feedback from both children and parents/ carers.