THE HEALTHIER SCOTLAND COOKING BUS

The Healthier Scotland Cooking Bus, funded by the Scottish Government and Food Standards Agency Scotland, delivers a Scottish based food education programme.Through the teaching and learning of practical cooking skills,levels of understanding and skills around food preparation and cooking complement other activities around diet and health, in particular creating a focus on the very real link between food choices, what is consumed and the impact on people’s health.

A visit from the Healthier Scotland Cooking Bus is a fantastic opportunity for staff, children and community groups and organizations to share the experience of our hands on food sessions. The new programme includes 12 practical cooking sessions per visit, allowing even more people the chance to participate in sessions.

In this pack you will find exemplar timetables and options of how visits can run, information and guidelines on planning for a Cooking Bus visit, FAQ’s and diagrams of the Cooking Bus, all of which should help you complete your application form for a Cooking Bus visit.The Cooking Bus team will provide you with help and guidance from the moment you receive your Cooking Bus application pack.

Applications are selected on their own merit, but areas that we look specifically for are:

  • Your commitment to continue cooking and promoting the legacy of the Cooking Bus once it has left.
  • Your commitment to staff training or community leader training.
  • The involvement of community groups if you are a school, or involvement of other groups and organizations if you are a community applicant.
  • Your commitment to participation in the evaluation of our aims and outcomes.
  • A high rate on the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation.

Should your application be successful, we will expect you to fill all of your sessions on the Bus,with 3 of the sessions being for staff / community leader training, involve local community groups in the visit, promote the Cooking Bus visit throughout your local community and participate in the pre and post evaluation of all sessions.

Unfortunately not all applications will be successful. This could simply be because the Healthier Scotland Cooking Bus programme is complete for the year, or that the application does not meet any of the above mentioned areas. Once we receive your application form, we will look at it carefully and will then write to you, letting you know the status of your application. If we feel that it does not quite match the requirements that we are looking for, we will tell you of the areas it does not match in, so that you can maybe look to improve your

application to fit our requirements, giving your application the chance to be looked at again. The Cooking Bus coordinator will be available to give you advice on this.

If you are successful in being selected to host a Bus visit we aim to let you know as soon as we possibly can, this could be up to 6 months before a visit or only a few months. The first stage is to confirm the site for the Bus, we will use the sketches with measurements & photographs that you send with your application or if possible ask the Cooking Bus driver to view your site. Please remember that we will need access to water and 24-hour access to toilet and washing facilities for the driver (more details of these requirements can be found in the Information and Guidelines).Once the site is confirmed the teaching team on the Cooking Bus will contact you. They will work with you to create a programme for the visit that is tailored to your community group’s or organizations requirements.

Running as a constant thread through all sessions, is a focus on practical hands on cooking skills, healthy eating and food safety and hygiene.An extra focus for Community Groups may be looking at how to start and run a Cooking Club.

Evaluation is an integral part of the Healthier Scotland Cooking Bus Programme. Such assessment helps to ensure the activities carried out are as effective as possible and can help identify areas for improvement. Evaluation enables us to demonstrate the impact of our programme in relation to knowledge, skills and the confidence gained. Additionally, the data collected allows us to better communicate our impactto others, which is critical for public relations, staff morale, and attracting and retaining support from current and potential funders for continuation of the Cooking Bus Programme.

It is expected that community and CPD participants will complete pre evaluation questionnaires on the Bus during the visit. If it is planned that groups of pupils from local schools will attend sessions, we will send pre-evaluation questionnaires to these schools. Teachers will be expected to complete these with pupils before attending their session on the Bus. All community, CPD and pupil participants will complete similar, post-evaluation questionnaires at the end of their session. The organizer of the visit will also be expected to complete an evaluation of the questionnaire following the visit.

Following the visit we hope to keep in touch with group / organization and perhaps at a later date make a follow up visit. We want to see that the Cooking Bus legacy is continuing and that cooking is playing an important part in your work.

If you wish to apply for a visit by The Cooking Bus for your community group or organization, please read all the further documents and then complete the application form and return it to Focus on Food.We look forward to hearing from you and receiving your completed evaluation.

Joanne Johnstone

Cooking Bus Programmes Coordinator

Focus on Food

Telephone: 01422 383191

Email:

Find out more about The Healthier Scotland Cooking Bus and Focus on Food, and download recipes and tips at

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