We are currently running an 18-month long cooking skills study group for eight organisations – NHS, local authority and community initiatives from across Scotland who are supporting people who are vulnerable or from low-income communities. The organisations are Fife Health and Social Care Partnership, NHS Grampian, Edinburgh Community Food, Healthy Valleys, Lanarkshire Community Food and Health Partnership, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, Dundee Healthy Living Initiative and NHS Forth Valley.

The group are building on a couple of the recommendations from a CFHS review of community cooking skills activities commissioned in 2014 to evaluate cooking skills courses across organisations and to improve evaluation. They have met several times and discussed what difference they believe their cooking courses make, and have an agreed list of what outcomes they will evaluate over the next year. CFHS will work with the group to analyse the collective evaluation materials and will report on the work in 2017.

Meanwhile, our soon to be available cooking skills blog will provide updates on the work of the group and other issues around running cooking skills activities.