School: Southside Education
Partner: Nutrition Australia (Queensland Division) and the Queensland University of Technology
Located in Brisbane and offering marginalised young women (many of whom are Indigenous) the opportunity to complete their secondary education, Southside Education is a community access school that provides a positive and non-threatening learning environment for disadvantaged students. The school offers a range of support services in addition to education that focus on encouraging students to lead healthy lifestyles and provide a nurturing environment.
Nutrition Australia, which has an existing partnership with the Queensland University of Technology to provide placements for student dieticians in community nutrition, and the school, agreed that students from QUT could be used to undertake identified projects at Southside Education under supervision.
Initially, the project saw students from QUT assessing the existing menu at the school and then developing a menu planning and recipe kit that supplied and promoted a balanced and nutritious meal to students. However, a further need was recognised: to equip students many of whom are young mothers with the skills to be able to prepare food away from the school setting, where students have limited knowledge about good food choices and face other issues such as small food budgets; a lack of cooking experience, shopping and food safety skills; and limited cooking equipment.
With the help of the Schools First Awards funding, Southside Education is intending to launch a program that provides a wide range of nutrition education activities for students, young mothers, teachers and crèche staff at the school. The activities will provide participants with skills in cooking and shopping (thereby contributing to an improvement in their physical health) and enhance the wellbeing of participants and their families.
Early in the partnership Nutrition Australia and QUT students conducted a situational analysis to identify key areas of concern. From this analysis a plan has now been developed that focuses on several components: student education activities through a range of workshops, teacher and wider school staff professional development, and a young mothers’ education series that will use the existing ‘Mothers’ Group’ to deliver a range of nutrition-related activities specific to mothers and their children’s needs. The school is also keen to introduce an onsite Farmers’ Market Fruit and Vegetable Cooperative to the Mothers’ Group meeting for mothers to access.
Students and their families will both benefit from this outstanding program by gaining access to healthy foods and developing their knowledge of healthy foods and good nutrition.
