Health Education Trust

Staff and trustees profiles

Marjon Willers — Mon, 25 Apr 2022 15:50:54 +0000

Staff

Chandra Pankhania

Marjon Willers

Marjon is a dietitian with over 15 years working with early years settings and schools across Islington and for Health Education Trust, starting with Food for Life partnership, developing resources and process to harness pupil voice to transform food culture.

Marjon is an expert in food and drink provision and eating environment in early years settings and schools. She was on the advisory board for the first Voluntary Food and Drink Guidelines for Early Years Settings in England (2011). Marjon has also experience of school meal contracts. Marjon lectures on school meal catering at London Metropolitan University and Kings College London.

Marjon is a trustee for First Steps Nutrition Trust.

Trustees

Malcolm Smith

Malcolm has a strong background in education, having been a teacher and senior leader in primary schools. He has since worked as an education officer for a water company – managing an environmental education centre – and led a national team of food-growing experts as part of Food for Life Partnership. He currently works for UK Parliament as an education and engagement officer, working with schools and community groups to increase their knowledge of and engagement in Parliamentary processes.

Steve Wakefield

He lives in East London, has three children and a dog, and is an enthusiastic member of a local choir.

Steve is a Fellow of the Chartered Association of Certified Accountants.

Sarah Weston

Sarah Weston is a Dietitian with experience working in the NHS, academia and non-government organisations. She is a passionate advocate for good food and integrity in professional practice. She specialises in maternal, infant and child health and has worked for both the NHS, supporting families and children, in the community, hospitals, and First Steps Nutrition Trust.

Sarah was responsible for setting up one of the first staff health and wellbeing services in the NHS where she ran a dietetic clinic and worked to improve the hospital food environment. Sarah currently lives in the Netherlands and volunteers at Food for Good at Utrecht Natuurlijk, Utrecht’s largest market garden.

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Good nutrition in early years

Marjon Willers — Mon, 25 Apr 2022 12:48:52 +0000

Statutory framework for the early years foundation stage 3.48 states that “Where children are provided with meals, snacks and drinks, they must be healthy, balanced and nutritious.”

Health Education Trust were commissioned by Greater London Authority Healthy Early Years Team to develop a set of resources and training materials to train staff at Local Education Authorities to support Early Years settings, and to train Early Years Settings to implement the Voluntary Food and Drink Guidelines for Early Years in England (Eat Better, Start Better).

How we can work with you:

Train staff / consultants who support early years settings to meet the Statutory framework for the early years foundation stage. Early Years Foundation Stage Framework on the Voluntary Food and Drink Guidelines for Early Years Settings in England.
Train Early Years staff and/or childminders to implement the Voluntary Food and Drink Guidelines for Early Years Settings in England.
Run menu workshops to support menu development and check menus against the menu checklist.
Support Early Years settings to use children’s voice to engage them around food and menu development.
Food policy development

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Erasmus: Learn4Earth

Marjon Willers — Mon, 25 Apr 2022 11:45:35 +0000

Learn4Earth is an Erasmus+ Strategic Partnership which includes 9 partners in total, representing 5 European countries: Denmark, Slovenia, United Kingdom, Spain, and Italy.

Key Objectives:

To develop key competencies in various sustainability-relevant subjects
To support the testing of innovative practices to prepare children to become true factors of change
To enhance teachers’ education and continuous professional development by developing innovative interdisciplinary teaching approaches and promote and support competence-oriented teaching and learning within the fields of Climate, Environment and Food
To enable behavioural changes for children and their food preferences, consumption habits and lifestyles through education and training

Health Education Trust has developed School Sustainability Action Group resources and activities, which Washingborough Academy have trialed with their pupils. These resources will be shared with other schools at the Multiplier Event at Washingborough on 7 July 2022 and tested internationally at Learn4Earth partner schools.

The resources will be published in the Hands on Food Activities (HOFA) at the end of the project.

For more information or if your school would like to use the resources, please contact us.

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Staff Profiles

Peter Moore — Sat, 29 Dec 2018 18:03:43 +0000

Our Staff

Chandra Pankhania – director

Chandra is a registered Nutritionist with a PGDip in Food Policy and is currently taking a MSc in Public Health Practice. She has been with the Health Education Trust since 2007, previously working on the delivery of national public health programmes like 5-a-day and the National School Fruit and Vegetable Scheme.

Marjon Willers – director

Marjon is a registered dietitian with a focus on good nutrition for children and young people through whole setting approach. She has worked for Health Education Trust since 2008, initially as part of the Food for Life Partnership. She has spoken at national conferences and lectures at London Universities. Marjon was involved in the original development of the Voluntary Food and Drink Guidelines for Early Year Settings in England in 2010. She is a trustee of First Steps Nutrition Trust.

Our Trustees

Malcolm Smith

Steve Wakefield

Steve Wakefield has over 30 years’ experience working in senior roles in finance, administration, and technology. After a long career with Reuters and Thomson Reuters, he now works as a consultant, advising clients on the digital transformation of their operations. Steve is a Fellow of the Chartered Association of Certified Accountants. Steve lives in East London, has three children and a dog, and is an enthusiastic member of a local choir.

Sarah Weston

Sarah Weston is a Registered Dietitian and is a passionate advocate for good food and integrity in professional practice. She has specialised in maternal, infant and child health and has worked for both the NHS, supporting families and children, both in the community and in hospitals, and also at First Steps Nutrition Trust where she co-wrote reports on specialist infant formula and breastfeeding and contributed to public health policy project work on early years nutrition. She has also worked as a breastfeeding counsellor for the Breastfeeding Network. Sarah currently lives in the Netherlands and volunteers at Food for Good at Utrecht Natuurlijk.

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Erasmus: Learn4Health

Peter Moore — Sat, 29 Dec 2018 17:53:44 +0000

In the globalized food systems, consumers, especially children, are increasingly disconnected from the understanding of how and where their food is produced. This has an impact on eating habits and food choices that might affect health, the environment and other ethical dilemmas such as animal welfare and fair trade. Teaching children about food, health and nutrition is, therefore, an essential part of not only securing the public health and well being of future generations, but also ensuring a more balanced and sustainable environment and world.

According to scholars, the school is an essential arena to address this knowledge gap; an ideal environment to nurture a connection and understanding between children and nature, a good context for promoting health and an understanding of food and food production. This has added benefits; research underpins and documents what educators already know: Healthy pupils and students are better prepared to learn.

It is on the basis of these issues, and on the understanding of the school as an essential arena that the Learn4Health project was started. Learn4Health is an EU Erasmus+ Strategic Partnership consisting of twelve partners representing six European countries, which aim to create, strengthen and sustain health, nutrition and food literacy
among pupils in primary and secondary schools in Europe. The Learn4Health project has developed new, interdisciplinary and innovative approaches, i.e. innovative teaching methods and learning contexts, aiming at teaching children about food, nutrition and health, providing hands-on learning contexts to strengthen their understanding of the origin of food, and the structure of food production. This way, Learn4Health strives to promote food literacy and educate children to be able to act on the basis of this knowledge, to create a healthier self and a better, more sustainable world.

HOFA-Handbook-final

Scientific publications

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School Allergy Action Group

Peter Moore — Sat, 29 Dec 2018 17:52:35 +0000

Joe Harvey, previous director of the Health Education Trust, wrote the first Managing Medicines in Schools guidance in 1999. Since then, the Department for Education (DfE) has updated the guidance with new additional regulations. The latest guidance by DfE, Supporting pupils at school with medical conditions, puts a duty on schools to provide appropriate support for pupils to be able to attend the school with any medical condition.

Health Education Trust worked with partners to develop a seven step user-friendly toolkit to help secondary school staff to develop a whole school allergy awareness policy through the use of School Allergy Action Groups (SAAG). All resources are free to download from Allergy UK website.

Scientific publications

Dissemination of EAACI food allergy guidelines using a flexible, practical, whole school allergy awareness toolkit

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Transforming school food culture

Peter Moore — Sat, 29 Dec 2018 17:51:11 +0000

The Health Education Trust developed the ‘whole school approach’ as a framework that guides the development of a healthy food culture in schools. This approach is endorsed by the head teacher, enshrined in the school development plan, and permeates the whole school experience. The approach ensures consistency: what is taught about food and healthy eating in lessons is reflected throughout the school day with a particular focus on the food provided by the school. Pupils are empowered to help guide the process, with the programme reaching out beyond the school gates into the wider community. For more information read our SNAG Frequently Asked Questions leaflet.

The SNAG process forms the basis of transforming food culture championed in the Food for Life programme with Health Education Trust leading on school leadership. Since then the importance of a whole school approach has also been recognised in the School Food Plan and the Checklist for Headteachers.

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Our Work With Schools

Peter Moore — Sat, 29 Dec 2018 17:49:19 +0000

Health Education Trust has been working with schools since it was set up in 1993. The main focus has been to engage with the whole school community to achieve change through development of a whole school policy and action plan. In relation to food, HET has been promoting the use of a School Nutrition Action Group (SNAG). SNAG membership includes senior leadership, teaching staff, lunchtime staff, governors, pupils, and parents and everyone has an important role to play.

The technique of a SNAG to transform school food culture can be applied to other issues such as managing medicines in schools.

HET’s current work with schools include transforming food culture and allergy management and awareness in secondary schools. Previous work with schools have also included managing other medical conditions such as epilepsy.

The Health Education Trust has developed useful resources and tools to support the development of a whole school approach through engagement and consultation of the whole school community. We can provide training and consultancy to support a whole school approach, consultation and engagement.

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