Providing key skills
for the local community

Wise About Food CIC delivers targeted Meet and Eat community cooking sessions for housing association residents, using communal lounges and shared kitchens within your schemes.

Sessions bring residents together to cook a meal and eat it as a group. They are practical, welcoming and designed around the people in the room. The food is the starting point. What grows from it is connection, confidence and a genuine sense of community.

Sessions can be tailored for:

• Older residents in sheltered housing who are at risk of isolation and malnutrition
• Mixed resident groups across general needs and supported housing
• Residents with specific needs including dementia, learning disabilities or mental health difficulties
• Wider community members invited in to join residents — breaking down the boundary between scheme and neighbourhood

Communal lounges and kitchens are assets that housing providers invest in but often struggle to activate. Meet and Eat turns them into the heart of the community they were always meant to be.

Sarah arrives, sets up and welcomes everyone as they come in. The group decides together what they would like to make — residents choose the menu, not Sarah. Everyone gets involved at whatever level suits them. Some chop and stir. Some sit and chat. Some do a bit of everything. There is no pressure to do any particular job or to be any kind of cook.

At the end, everyone sits down and eats together. Food can be taken home if preferred. Allergies and dietary requirements are always taken into account before the session begins.

If some residents are less able — physically or in terms of confidence — the group naturally rallies around. That peer support is one of the most powerful things that happens in a Meet and Eat session and it cannot be manufactured. It just happens when people are given the right conditions.

Sessions last approximately two hours. Sarah brings everything she needs. You provide the space and the residents.

Wise About Food CIC collects feedback from every session. Outcomes we consistently see include:

• Increased social connection — residents meeting neighbours they had not previously spoken to
• Reduced loneliness — particularly among older residents who rarely leave their home
• Improved confidence around food and cooking
• Residents continuing to meet informally between sessions
• Improved mood and wellbeing, particularly for residents managing mental health difficulties
• Residents who are less able feeling supported and included rather than isolated
• Improved nutrition awareness and practical food skills

These outcomes align directly with housing association priorities around resident wellbeing, community cohesion and independent living. They also provide evidence of social value that can strengthen your own funding applications and impact reporting.

We can provide anonymised feedback data and outcome summaries for your reporting and commissioning purposes.

As little as possible. Here is how it works:

• You get in touch and tell Sarah about your scheme, your residents and what you would like to achieve
• Sarah designs a programme of sessions tailored to your community
• Sarah identifies and applies for grant funding to cover the cost wherever possible — asking you only a few simple questions about your organisation and residents
• Once funding is confirmed, sessions are scheduled and Sarah delivers them
• You provide the communal space and help communicate sessions to residents
• Sarah handles everything else — session planning, ingredients, equipment, facilitation and feedback collection

Funding applications can take up to three months to process, so the earlier you get in touch the better.

You say yes. Sarah does everything else. Get in touch at sarah@wiseaboutfood.co.uk to start the conversation.

Yes absolutely. If you have an existing budget for resident wellbeing, community activities or social prescribing, Wise About Food CIC can be commissioned directly without going through a grant application process.

Sarah will work with you to design a programme that meets your residents’ needs and fits your budget. Sessions can be one-off or run as a regular programme across a term or year.

For housing providers who are already working with social prescribers or NHS partners, there may also be opportunities to jointly commission or co-fund a programme.

Email sarah@wiseaboutfood.co.uk to discuss direct commissioning and costs.

Yes — and this is something we actively encourage where it is possible.

Opening Meet and Eat sessions to people from the surrounding neighbourhood — not just residents of the scheme — creates a much richer mix of people and strengthens the connection between sheltered housing and the wider community. It reduces the sense that sheltered housing is a place apart, and brings new relationships into the lives of residents who may rarely leave the building.

This does require some practical consideration around space, capacity and communication, but it is absolutely achievable and the results are consistently positive.

If you are interested in opening sessions to the wider community, mention this when you get in touch and we will build it into the programme design.

Meet and Eat sessions are designed to be inclusive of residents with a wide range of needs. Sarah has extensive experience working with people with dementia, learning disabilities and mental health difficulties in community settings.

Sessions are adapted to the group in the room. Familiar, simple recipes. Clear, calm instructions. No pressure, no rush, no judgement. For residents with dementia in particular, cooking can be a powerful trigger for positive memory and engagement — familiar smells, textures and tasks can reach people that other activities cannot.

If your scheme has residents with specific complex needs, please share this when you get in touch so sessions can be planned appropriately.

Wise About Food CIC is run by Sarah Scotland BSc Nutrition, Exercise and Health (Hons), a community nutritionist based in Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire.

Sarah has worked with housing associations and sheltered housing providers across Hertfordshire for many years, delivering Meet and Eat sessions that are warm, practical and genuinely transformative for the people who attend. She is DBS checked, fully insured and experienced in working with vulnerable adults in community settings.

Wise About Food is a community interest company. Every penny goes back into the work.

"Food is the appetiser. What we are really about is helping people realise what they are capable of."