HEALTHY BEING BOX
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Skerne Park Community Enterprise
Association
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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.
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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)
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Ink cost £96 .00 x 2 colours
Print plate cost £ 450.00
Board cost £ 375.00
Tool cost £550 .00
Labour cost £90.00
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Total cost to Saica £1657.00
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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.
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Thank You to SAICA
CONSULTATION
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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’.
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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