Information for researchers
One in five families cannot regularly access affordable and healthy food in the UK. This is known as food insecurity.
Community food assets (CFAs) aim to relieve food insecurity. CFAs have significantly increased in number over the last decade. Models of CFAs vary, including food banks, food pantries, community meals, cooking sessions, delivery of food packages, and holiday meals provision for children. Some CFAs provide additional services, such as welfare advice and support with finding employment.
There is little evidence about what works in terms of CFAs’ structure or provision in terms of preventing or reducing food insecurity.
We are conducting a longitudinal qualitative study in Bradford and Tower Hamlets (London), working collaboratively with CFA users and staff, to understand which approaches may help prevent the need for emergency food aid.
Our research will help inform local and national decision-making to maximise the effectiveness of provision.
How are we doing this?
First, we are mapping out the food aid systems in both locations through a survey, workshops and interviews with people working in CFAs and local government and with CFA users.
Second, over 12 months, we will undertake ethnographic research. Three researchers will work as volunteers at five CFAs (three in Bradford, two in London) to understand how they work and to meet users, volunteers and staff.
We will undertake ‘go-along’ interviews with 35 families, spending time with them to understand their lives and the role CFAs play. We will also spend time with families who are food insecure but do not use CFAs to understand why, and how they manage.
We will invite families to take photos of things that are important to them about food. These activities will help us understand which CFA approaches are most effective, how and in what ways, and how accessible and inclusive they are. We will analyse our data by ‘theorising interventions as events in systems’ (Hawe, 2009).
We will consider how CFAs sit within their wider context, track/map changes to key relationships over time, understand how resources are distributed and/or transformed, and uncover displaced activities. This will allow us to understand system-level impact when CFAs are viewed as complex ecological systems containing dynamic properties.
If you would like to get involved or discuss the research with us, please contact us.
