Building community capacity through a healthy food programme: An evaluation of LEAP into Healthy Living – Executive Summary
Executive Summary
Building community capacity through a healthy food programme: An evaluation of LEAP into Healthy Living
1.0 About LEAP
Lambeth Early Action Partnership (LEAP) is one of five local partnerships which make up A Better Start (ABS), a national ten-year (2015-2025) test and learn programme funded by the National Lottery Community Fund that aims to improve the life chances of babies, very young children, and families.
LEAP is supported by the National Children’s Bureau charity (NCB) and works with a wide range of children, families, practitioners, and organisations across Lambeth.
LEAP operates in a focused area of Lambeth. This area was selected based on local need, drawing on a range of local evidence that illustrated greater inequalities for young children in these areas compared with the rest of Lambeth. Broadly, our target area stretches from Stockwell to Myatt’s Field, down through North Brixton to the top of Tulse Hill, covering about 20% of the borough.
LEAP has funded and improved more than 20 local services to meet the needs of families through pregnancy and the early years of childhood. LEAP is a ‘collective impact initiative’, which means that all our services and activities link together and work towards shared goals to improve outcomes for very young children.
LEAP’s aim is to:
- Improve early child development outcomes for all children living in the LEAP area.
- Reduce local inequalities by supporting those at greater risk of poor outcomes.
While LEAP has some targeted services that are only available to families living in the LEAP area, other services are available to all families living in Lambeth. Services fall into two groups:
- Services that work directly with children to help them reach their developmental milestones.
- Services that support children indirectly, by working with parents, early years practitioners and the wider community, so they are better equipped to provide the responsive relationships and positive experiences that children need.
2.0 About Healthy Living Platform (HLP)
Healthy Living Platform (HLP) is a no-cost membership-based service which promotes healthy behaviours and aims to provide an environment that encourages families to eat healthily, socialise, and be physically active.
LEAP started funding LEAP into Healthy Living activities as part of Incredible Edible Lambeth in 2018. The Healthy Living Platform was then established as an independent organisation in 2019.
3.0 Evaluation aims and rationale
This evaluation aimed to provide evidence for how Healthy Living Platform (HLP) built community capacity locally in the LEAP area, to inform HLP’s future work and to generate broader insights about how community-led food programmes can build community capacity.
We conducted surveys to gain insights into local families’ experience of participating in HLP and the impact it has had on their lives. We also conducted focus groups with staff and volunteers, and interviewed partners and individuals who have participated in HLP.
This data collection enabled us to further explore how HLP have built community capacity and what changes have occurred a result of the HLP programme.
HLP focuses on building community capacity through volunteer training and upskilling, improving health and wellbeing, and connecting families with their community and other sources of support.
This provides a unique opportunity to learn what works to build community capacity through healthy living activities, and to evidence the difference this makes for young families in a deprived, inner-city area. The findings from this evaluation offer useful insights for Lambeth community programmes and other early years and food programmes.
4.0 What is Community Capacity?
Community capacity can be defined as ‘what people in local communities are able to do to help and support each other’ (Harflett & Edwards, 2019).
Similar local community food initiatives have identified three different levels to community capacity building:
- Material capacity such as job roles, physical assets, and infrastructure.
- Personal capacity at an individual level, including self-esteem, health behaviours, and skill development.
- Cultural capacity at a community level, for example co-production opportunities, increased social networking, and connections to other organisations.
5.0 Key Findings
This evaluation highlights the extremely positive impact Healthy Living Platform (HLP) has had on the local community and evidences several ways in which HLP has successfully built community capacity within the LEAP area.
- Families experience financial benefits from participating in HLP.
- Families who participated in HLP have more knowledge and confidence in cooking and eating healthy foods.
- Participants attribute improvements in mental wellbeing to their participation in HLP.
- Families feel more connected to the community.
- HLP volunteers feel more confident in running activities, have developed transferable knowledge and skills, and feel more connected to the community.
- HLP volunteers also benefit from being given ownership of projects and opportunities to start up their own businesses.
- Successful partnership working has enabled greater reach within the community and supported the development of HLP’s community capacity.
The evaluation has also highlighted the challenges to building community capacity and the impact of any reduction in HLP’s activities due to funding gaps because of the end of the LEAP funding.
- Funding and capacity were highlighted as areas that have restricted growth and development of HLP.
- If HLP were not able to continue their work within the area, it would have an immense impact not just on the families they work with but also the organisations they partner with.
The pantry kind of creates a centre of gravity. So, like something around which other things kind of coalesce…