Southern Trust’s ‘Cook It’ classes go down a treat

The Southern Health and Social Care have been running a cooking programme for people with a visual or hearing impairment.

The Trust’s Sensory Disability Team coordinated the ‘Cook It’ programme which aimed to increase awareness and understanding of key nutrition messages, develop cooking skills and help raise awareness of good food hygiene.

Participants have been given the opportunity to make healthy food choices, handle and prepare food safely, sample the completed dishes and learn more about cooking on a budget.

The programme was adapted by Rehabilitation Officer, Pamela Clarke, in partnership with the Promoting Wellbeing Team.

Pamela explained that a lot of time and effort was put in to support ‘Cook It’ to help make it a successful project. “I originally delivered the programme to a group of adults with sight loss and I had to tailor it to meet the needs of the group.

“The tasks that visually impaired people found difficult included weighing and measuring ingredients, pouring liquids, chopping vegetables, and setting the cooker to the correct temperature. These barriers were overcome with appropriate equipment and skilled training to work in another way.

“When I was approached by the Community Access Officer in relation to delivering the programme to deaf people I thought this would be a good opportunity to roll out the programme.

“Again I had to look at the communication barriers and how these could be addressed. An interpreter was funded by the Cook It programme so that the participants could gain the maximum benefit from the programme,” Pamela adds.

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Posted by Newry Times News on Dec 11 2015. Filed under Community. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry