Collaborative Cookery Groups - working to improve community mental health service users' life skills, health and wellbeing

Aneurin Bevan University Health Board

The Occupational Therapy (OT) Team in North Monmouthshire Community Mental Health Team, identified a high number of individuals who had poor nutritional knowledge and cooking skills; some had never cooked for themselves, or hardly cooked. Some individuals had never been shown how to cook nor have the basic knowledge or skills needed. Others found the process overwhelming, anxiety provoking, often lacking in self-esteem or confidence, or lacking the time and motivation to cook. For some the challenge was a lack of education around healthy / unhealthy meal choices, especially if finances were a concern.

Joint planning with Occupational Therapists and the Education team agreed a group protocol. This protocol set the aims, objectives, process, risk management and evaluation methods to facilitate a cooking group (of mixed genders) to improve the occupational participation for individuals. It was agreed that the course duration would be six weeks, but individuals could stay on longer if there was a clinical need and capacity. Attendees on completion would receive Agored accreditation.

Coleg Gwent provided a premises and some facilities, and the cooking groups commenced. The service users agree amongst themselves the menu they want to prepare the following week and buy their own ingredients. If individuals experience challenges in this, the OT team work with them, using a graded approach, until they are able to shop independently. After cooking the meal, individuals are given the opportunity to eat together, improving social confidence. Some participants batch cook meals which they could then freeze, or cook enough to take home for their family.

Feedback of experiences from individuals showed improvements in their confidence, reduction in anxieties and increased feeling of achievements from taking part in a group. The group has now been successfully running for over three years, with over 100 places facilitated to date, and has led to an increased use of community resources and engagement in educational classes by service users.