The Holiday Activities and Food (HAF) programme plays a vital role in supporting children from lower-income families, helping to ease pressure on household budgets during school holidays, while providing access to enriching activities and a healthy meal each day.
Government standards for HAF provision encourage providers to incorporate activities that help children and young people understand the benefits of healthy eating and nutrition, creating positive, stigma-free opportunities to support healthier lifestyles. Encouragingly, evaluation data from the 2021 HAF programme shows that children reported eating more healthily while attending holiday clubs, with parents and staff echoing these positive changes.
But it can be challenging for providers to know how to deliver suitable food activities without having experience, facilities or external support.
So, to continue to build on this impact and extend our reach to help children and young people build lasting healthy habits, the British Nutrition Foundation has developed Make, Munch and More, an online training programme series designed to support HAF providers in delivering engaging and simple food activities. The training gives providers the knowledge, skills and confidence they need to deliver safe, practical food activities in their holiday club settings, helping them meet standards while enhancing the overall quality of provision.
By supporting HAF providers in delivering hands-on food education, we enable more children have the opportunity to learn about healthy eating in an accessible and engaging way.
