News, events and schools' information for families across Bath and West Wiltshire

The Children’s healthy weight team for Virgin Care’s Wellbeing Service is running a series of Free Cook It, LEAP and Henry Healthy Families Courses that are available to parents in B&NES.

  1. Cook It is a five-week course currently being delivered online that aims to motivate and provide families with the skills and confidence to plan, prepare and cook healthy budget friendly family meals and to improve knowledge about healthy eating by covering topics such as eat well plate, portion sizes, healthy snacks. This course is particularly aimed at low income families. Every family which completes the course is presented with a £25 supermarket voucher to put towards buying ingredients or equipment for recipes.

    Upcoming courses start on 3 November and 18 November.

    A family which recently attended the course said, “Thank you so much for yesterday’s session, the kids loved the chicken curry! One of my children has previously had a challenging, fearing relationship with food due to allergies. After yesterday’s session, she tried the curry and said ‘I like the chicken and the sauce!’ What a win!”
  1. Henry Healthy Families is an online eight week evidence-based programme which supports families with young children to give them a great start in life and encourages a healthier lifestyle for the whole family. The programme supports physical and emotional wellbeing and covers nutrition, physical activity, portion sizes, screen time, looking after yourself, exploring children’s and parent’s feelings and managing challenging behaviour. It’s a relaxed and informal online course which gives parents the opportunity to share experiences and ideas with other parents.  Each parent receives a free set of helpful family resources – a course book, which includes recipe and activity ideas; children’s story books and soft ball, charts and more. For more info please go to the Henry website at Homepage | HENRY. This course is particularly aimed at low income families.
  1. LEAP is also a six-week online course, offering 1:1 support for children (with their family) aged 5-10 and 10-17. The course is aimed towards children who wish to work towards a healthy weight. The topics covered include healthy food and drink swaps, physical activity, impact of screen time and why we make certain food choices. Tailored goals are then set after every session and each child/parent receives a family booklet and session plan. After the course finishes, participants are offered three months of free leisure centre activities (including one accompanying adult). 

For more information or to take part in one of these course, email email hidden; JavaScript is required or call 0300 247 0050