Support during Covid-19

The local response to rising food insecurity during the coronavirus outbreak is nothing short of extraordinary. Food poverty alliances across the nation, both within our network and beyond, have stepped up to help ensure that economically and medically vulnerable people are not left to go hungry.

At Food Power we are doing our best to help connect local groups to share best practice and resources, improve the coordination of local responses, efficiently disseminate national guidance on food provision and feedback on the ground experiences of our members to national decision-makers.

Local Resilience Forums: We strongly advise that people tackling food poverty are also linked into their local resilience forum, particularly in the current climate. Find contact details of your local forum.

Latest support

As the pandemic shows no sign of abating, Food Power has continued to provide support for alliances across the UK, including:

• A winter resilience blog series that includes a summary of the new Covid Winter Grant scheme in England and a summary of experiences of food provision during the October half term in 2020.
• Two webinars on boosting personal resilience and wellbeing during covid-19. These explored the resilience tree and how to explore patterns in our resilience. These webinars aimed to help strengthen alliances in light of the ongoing challenges they're facing.
• A new guide on how local authorities can support recovery and resilience for food security during and beyond covid-19.
• A final round of financial support to support alliances to build local food resilience beyond Covid-19. 

Weekly coordinator catch-ups

During April and May 2020, Food Power and Sustainable Food Places (SFP) hosted weekly online forums for food alliance coordinators to connect and share with each other, hear national updates on food-related issues, and feedback their experiences to national network coordinators and campaigners. 

Listen back to previous forums:

• 3 June: The Bristol #FoodKindCampaign, Going for Gold and Feeding Bristol; Local partnership in action: Glasgow Food Policy Partnership; Reflections from Sustain's Chief Exec on what the future (may) hold. Listen to the recording. Download Bristol presentation. Download Glasgow presentation. Download Sustain's presentation. 
• 27 May: An update on the Agriculture Bill and farming sector; Local partnership in action: Food Durham; Food for Good Coalition in Edinburgh. Listen to the recording. Dowload Ag Bill and farming sector presentation. Download Food Durham presentation. Dowload Food for Good Coalition presentation. 
• 20 May: Changing narratives and opportunities for food resilience during and post-outbreak with the Food Ethics Council; Local partnership in action: Food Cardiff; Case study of Our Kitchen on the Isle of Thanet. Listen to the recording. Download Food Cardiff presentation. Download Our Kitchen in Thanet presentation. 
• 13 May: A Scottish perspective on responding to Covid-19 and implementing Dignity in Practice; School food caterers serving the community; Case study Made in Hackney. Listen to the recording. Download Nourish Dignity in Practice presentation. Download school food caterers serving the community presentation. Download Made in Hackney presentation.
• 6 May: Case study of local coordination in action from Birmingham's Director of Public Health; Case study of local coordination in action from CFINE in Aberdeen; The role of wholesalers in food responses to Covid-19, case study from Southwark. Listen to the recording.
• 29 April: School food trends; Food insecurity research from Food Foundation; Case study of local coordination in action from the Greater Liverpool region. Listen to the recording. Dowload school food trends presentation. Dowload Food Foundation presentation on food insecurity research. Dowload presentation of local action in Greater Liverpool.  
• 22 April: Better Food & local supply chain response; Case study from Regather co-op in Sheffield; Good food movements. Listen to the recording. Download Better Food Traders presentation. Download Regather presentation. Download Good Food Movements presentation.
• 15 April: Top tips for online collaboration; Case studies of local coordination in action from Greenwich and Brighton & Hove; Guidance on community food growing and allotments. Listen to the recording. Download the PPT presentation. Download Greenwich case study. Dowload Guide to Virtual Meetings. Download the Group Calls-Top Tips.
• 8 April: Changes to the Healthy Start scheme; Challenges, solutions and guidance to keeping markets open; Ensuring food provision for children while schools are closed. Listen to the recording. Dowload the PPT presentation.

Hungry for more? Sustain is hosts a wide variety of webinars - check out the full list.

Covid-19 Digest

During the initial months of the outbreak, we helped SFP to compile regular digests of the latest information, advice and guidance related to food supply and food for vulnerable people, as well as funding opportunities and examples of local action. Digests have now ended so please sign up to our monthly newsletter to stay in touch.

• SFP Covid-19 Digest 17 (17 June 2020)
• SFP Covid-19 Digest 16 (4 June 2020)
• SFP Covid-19 Digest 15 (28 May 2020)
• SFP Covid-19 Digest 14 (22 May 2020)
• SFP Covid-19 Digest 13 (13 May 2020)
• SFP Covid-19 Digest 12 (7 May 2020)
• SFP Covid-19 Digest 11 (1 May 2020)
• SFP Covid-19 Digest 10 (28 April 2020)
• SFP Covid-19 Digest 9 (24 April 2020)
• SFP Covid-19 Digest 8 (20 April 2020)
• SFP Covid-19 Digest 7 (15 April 2020)
• SFP Covid-19 Digest 6 (9 April 2020)
• SFP Covid-19 Digest 5 (7 April 2020)
• SFP Covid-19 Digest 4 (3 April 2020)
• SFP Covid-19 Digest 3 (1 April 2020)
• SFP Covid-19 Digest 2 (31 March 2020)
• SFP Covid-19 Digest 1 (30 March 2020) 

Creative responses to Covid-19

We want to continue empowering those with lived experience to share their experiences and help identify solutions to some of the challenges we are currently facing. We are exploring ways in which we can stay connected online, whilst respecting that for many people other things may take priority, not least looking after one’s mental health and wellbeing. Here's how to get involved.

• Amplifying stories from the grassroots: Hosted a two part series of online workshops for people with lived experience of poverty, activists and allies to learn new skills, unlock creative potential and explore different ways of amplifying stories from the grassroots. You can see some of the previous topics here.
• Are we all in the same boat? We made a short film by asking the question ‘Are we all in the same boat?' thanks to your contributions. Watch it here.

Contact Ben Pearson if you have other ideas about how best to involve, empower and support those with lived experience during the crisis.

Sustainable Food Places (SFP) email discussion group

This email list is a useful way to share what’s going on and ask questions about the response to Covid-19. To sign up, send an email to sfc-subscribe@lists.riseup.net and follow the instructions. Once subscribed you can ask your questions or share info by emailing sfc@lists.riseup.net.

Sign up for Food Power's monthy newsletter to stay up to date on the latest food poverty news.

Find out more about how Sustain is supporting food system resilience in the crisis.