Feeding Bradford & Keighley Annual Report for AGM 19th Oct 2020 Feeding Bradford & Keighley (FB&K) is a membership organisation with 87 member organisations (13 Oct 2020) who are organisations or individuals working to address food poverty across the district. Our vision is a Bradford District free of food poverty where people have access to affordable good food. Feeding Bradford & Keighley is a pilot group of Feeding Britain, sharing ideas and good practice across the country, working in partnership to do larger joint funding bids and feeding into the national political agenda. The coordinator Cathy Henwood is employed by Wellsprings Together. We are also members of West Yorkshire Food Poverty Network which is now also part of Feeding Britain. A personal note from Cathy – a year of two halves. When I look around the many zoom meetings I am having and I am sure at the AGM today I see so many partners and members who have been working so so incredibly hard since March. Sometimes as a network co-ordinator it feels like I don’t do anything. I sometimes envy those of you who cook meals, pack up and deliver food, run holiday schemes or provide advice, it is maybe more easy to see how you contribute. I hope I do contribute in a small way to all your outcomes and can share in the pride of what we have all delivered and continue to deliver. I certainly have been incredibly busy too, some of that hounding you all for figures or disseminating information to you, trying to ensure that the network’s views got heard and co-ordinating all your efforts with the Council. I apologise for the necessary badgering and feel incredibly honoured to be working alongside you all this past 12 months. You are all amazing. The big news from the first half of the year was
the joining of Keighley Food Poverty Action Partnership with Feeding Bradford to form a district-wide organisation Feeding Bradford & Keighley. The start of better networking of the feeding projects serving the destitute and homeless groups across Bradford And the mapping work that Josie from Central Foodbank started just weeks before lockdown when we didn’t know what would hit us! These three bits of work were very fortuitous in their timing – and certainly meant we were better prepared to get information and support set up quicker when needed. Quarterly meetings: Feeding B&K has run all but 1 of our quarterly network meetings which are open to all interested in food poverty, topics have included an information fair last AGM, a focus on families in January and in July we shared the floor with you all and heard what you had all been up to responding to Covid. Steering group: Feeding B&K has a steering group which meets at least quarterly and is made up of representatives from community meals providers, a NHS nutritionist, food distribution organisations and the council. These members were agreed at our 2nd AGM this time last year with co-oped members from the council and Josh from Keighley when our two networks joined together. I’d like to thank Gareth Batty from Fareshare Yorkshire for his support as a steering group member over the last 3 years, he has decided to leave the steering group now, but will stay in touch - I’ll keep him to that! He has made a great contribution. 2 ½ years ago we had decided to create a more formal structure with a constitution and membership, this is our 3rd AGM and our 1st as Feeding Bradford & Keighley
Contact Feeding Bradford & Keighley – email [email protected]
Highlights of last 12 months
The huge response from all of you and many non-members to feed Bradford & Keighley during this pandemic Holiday projects and Covid response work with food and activities - work is really taking off with 118 organisations funded by 3 sets of funders (some had funding from all 3 funders enabling them to reach many more families). So much more provision than 3 years ago. Our Network is growing both in numbers and by joining with Keighley. The continued growth and adaption of the Advice work provision in food settings A couple of years ago we set some priorities:
To support the development and uptake of provision which helps people move on from food crisis
This has become our key priority, even during this crisis we need to keep in mind not just feeding people now but setting up systems to foster independence and self-reliance where we can. We have supported this by o Developing more low cost food provision: Exciting developments are really building momentum with an increase in low cost food provision with Innchurches Storehouse launching its Shaw House social supermarket, mapping work being undertaken by the council and York University, exciting developments for a mobile low cost food stall visiting community centres in Keighley and plans in progress for a council funded small grant scheme to help launch more food clubs or food stalls across the rest of Bradford. There are also talks happening to open a larger social supermarket by Company Stores, and the potential for some partnership with Family Action to set up food clubs. o Pathways out of poverty: Over the last 20 months we have worked with Feeding Britain and Girlington Advice Centre to obtain a 2-year lottery grant to put an advice worker into 4 community food settings. This service is being very well used. Over Covid much of this work has had to adapt to telephone advice, with a bit of a lull while things were set up and promoted the advice worker is very well used. We are exploring avenues to continue this work both within the council’s commissioned welfare advice provision and by exploring further funding to continue a small amount of dedicated service as well. o Supporting best practice by working with meal providers to promote best practice in supporting people in crisis to take steps to move beyond that crisis – we have started this process by bringing together those involved in providing crisis meals to share ideas on how to work better together, training which was scheduled has been cancelled but will be rebooked and a Facebook page has been set up with 59 members o Disseminating information about services for those supporting people to move on from food crisis, and supporting the development of new services at last year’s AGM in information fair and report where we outlined services for those not able to attend.
To improve food crisis support so that no one has to go to bed hungry by: o Foodbanks and Food Hub support working with the council, Innchurches and others to ensure that foodbanks had enough food to meet what was x4 of the normal demand over the height of the crisis in April and May, and collecting data to ensure that funds could continue for this vital support, some foodbanks have managed to taper off their need for this funded food but others are still heavily reliant. The Council set up a food hub in Broadway, Feeding Bradford worked with them, the council switchboard and the Bronze Level Crisis meetings - Supporting Communities group to coordinate provision
Contact Feeding Bradford & Keighley – email [email protected]
o Foodbank accessibility: We have a wonderful network of independent foodbanks all with their own referral routes and methods, it doesn’t seem possible to pull this into one referral route, but we did work with the council food hub and area hubs to inform them about their local foodbanks and how to access those. There is ongoing work in this area. o Are we meeting the food crisis needs of all our community? The council food hub was used by a different demographic than most of our foodbanks, there was much higher usage from our South Asian community. We are working with others to address this. The reasons are complex. Experiences in Keighley show with a different approach the foodbanks there more accurately reflect the demographic of their population. This is ongoing work. o Feeding Bradford & Keighley Network kept meetings and newsletters going to share good news stories and helpful information o Crisis meal provision as well as our red booklet on meal provision: we have kept a list of open meal providers updated throughout the year – lots of changes, and attempted to set up a food delivery system to enable more people to stay at home. This didn’t really come to fruition, but did provide a lot of useful information to ensure more people got appropriate support.
To ensure that children in Bradford are fed during term time and in school holidays by: o Three sets of holiday provision funding this year: Although we were not a direct provider this year, our continued work with partners and work in keeping this issue on the local and national agenda contributed to there being 3 sets of funders funding provision this year, 118 organisations were funded. We worked directly with Give Bradford and TLG and tried to ensure good practice and co-ordination between the 3 schemes. . DFE HAF programme run by TLG: 88 projects funded for the summer holidays reaching 6,326 children . Give Bradford Healthy Holiday Covid response funded 40 projects from April to end of August reaching 8,910 children . Bradford MDC HAF scheme funded 40 projects reaching 1,973 children. o Mapping work of school breakfast provision done by York University provides useful avenues for future work.
To ensure that decision makers and residents of Bradford and beyond are aware of the underlying factors leading to food insecurity and have positive ways of responding by: o collecting and sharing local information, stories and data o feeding back to Feeding Britain information gained so it can be fed back to the All Party Parliamentary group on Hunger. o ensuring we keep informed and share our stories by taking part in the West Yorkshire Food Poverty network. o improving access to resources, information and expertise o being a point of contact and seeking views to enable Feeding B&K to be able to give informed information and views on issues including support on how to best ramp up provision as lockdown started, and how foodbanks think they will manage in the event of a no deal Brexit.
To involve experts by experience in Feeding Bradford & Keighley’s work by: o Collecting information during the first national lockdown from those attending meal provision, and the follow on work that was provided, gave lots of feedback about areas in which those in receipt of support would benefit from help. Some of this is about the council going back to those commissioned to provide supported accommodation to see why their residents are still accessing crisis meal provision. The social aspect as well as the good food were amongst the key reasons. More ongoing work is needed in this area
Contact Feeding Bradford & Keighley – email [email protected]
To seek funding to continue and extend Feeding Bradford & Keighley’s work by: o being successful in obtaining funding working with member organisations in Feeding Bradford & Keighley and beyond – see financial report. o Continuing our successful joint bid with Feeding Britain to host advice workers in 4 of our food settings o having paid contract work with Give Bradford and TLG for the summer holiday scheme support and Bradford Council for support work for our continued work with them on affordable food
Looking ahead - Challenges?
Covid 19 hasn’t gone away, no one has a crystal ball and we have the uncertainties of Brexit ahead too. We will continue to work with you all to support your efforts, champion our sector and share information. Please keep us informed and in touch with what you are thinking and needing. Foodbank accessibility - we know with uncertain times ahead, the ending of the current furlough systems and uncertainty over the coming months that many new people might need the support of a foodbank. We have started working with our colleagues in the foodbanks, Innchurches and the council to create an accessible and well promoted landing place where professionals and members of the public can find out how to access a foodbank when in need. Meeting the needs of all those most in need in the community We are challenged to do better in this area, and are working with the council and other partners to ensure we better meet the need of all our population. This may include supporting the development of new provision, improving referral routes into foodbanks, working with community and faith organisations and bringing other food providers into the coordinated action and Feeding Bradford & Keighley membership. By supporting existing provision only during the 1st lockdown we inadvertently maintained some inequalities. Work is in the early stages but ongoing. Healthy Holidays - and other programmes – we have had a very successful summer but we know there are still gaps and families we haven’t reached. We need to keep the momentum up as this problem is unlikely to go away quickly. We are also aware that much of the work is concentrated over the long summer break, but some families struggle all year round even without the Covid crisis. We are challenged by the idea of pushing for ‘Cash First’, and the successful campaign to extend free school meal vouchers over the summer. Families need to thrive not just survive with additional programmes adding fun and additional food helping the most vulnerable families. Moving on from crisis. This is a key area, we need to keep this work going both with the low cost markets development and restarting the work with crisis meal providers to help all from the commissioned and statutory services to informal feeding projects work together to improve outcomes for those stuck in cycles of deprivation, homelessness, addiction and mental health crisis. Collecting data 30 months ago we had a successful data collection week, our report was well received, last year we had much less time to commit to it and consequently didn’t get back enough data to compare year on year. We have however been collecting lots of data from foodbanks to track usage during the crisis and are keeping track of usage on a 4 weekly cycle while demand remains high – are there any other areas of data collection we need to put significant time into next year?
Have your say – what other challenges should we be meeting? – There will be a discussion following the formal part of the meeting, or arrange to talk to any of the steering group about your ideas, or you can email Cathy.
Contact Feeding Bradford & Keighley – email [email protected]