Cooking up some confidence

One of our brilliant Housing First workers, Dom, recently ran a cooking session for people supported by the Housing First programme. It was a lovely opportunity to connect over food and build confidence in the kitchen. Dom shares his reflections below…

The Idea

Cooking has always been a passion of mine. I’ve run cooking sessions before when I worked as a primary school teaching assistant and in temporary accommodation, so I was thrilled to have the opportunity to do this within the Housing First programme.

My idea was to teach our participants how to cook delicious and nutritious food that is affordable and simple to make. Good quality food is something that can be lacking in many of the people we support’s lives, likely in part due to the often chaotic nature of how our people can be living. Offering a chance to build skills in this area could be really beneficial to their health and wellbeing.

Cooking can also enrich people’s lives beyond just providing them with tasty food. It can be an excellent social activity, become a hobby, and help with budgeting, as cooking is often cheaper than buying pre-prepared food.

I remember one relatively unremarkable event that really sparked my love for cooking. It was seeing my friend’s cousin make chapatis for us all from just flour and water after we forgot to order them with a takeaway curry. It was such a revelation to see how simple and easy it was to make something as essential and delicious as chapatis. For this reason, I decided to make chapatis the focus of our first Housing First cooking session.

The first batch of curry and chapatis

Session 1

KB joined us for the first session, and we were really glad to welcome her. Her engagement with Housing First varies, so it was great to see her take part. She seemed to really enjoy the session, chatting, laughing, and, most importantly, making some really nice chapatis! Myself and my colleagues Shannon and Holly ran the session, and we all sat together with KB to enjoy a curry I had made the night before, paired with the chapatis we had just cooked.

During the session, KB voiced the same amazement I had felt when I first realised how simple it is to make bread like this. We gave her a bag of chapati flour at the end of the session, and she said that now, if she runs out of bread, she can just make chapatis herself.

Session 2

KB returned for the second session, saying she had enjoyed the first one so much. This time, my colleague Dan and I made a lasagne with her and portioned it into six disposable containers so she could freeze them and eat them whenever she wanted. She really appreciated this. KB is prescribed nutritional drinks by her GP as her weight can become quite low, so it felt good to support her in preparing multiple portions of hearty, nutritious food.

Session 3

TBC… I think maybe a curry though, to go with chapatis!

Final Thoughts

These sessions have already had a meaningful impact. KB has benefitted from the social side of cooking, gained new skills to prepare nutritious meals, and now has a freezer full of food she prepared herself. She’s also been spreading the word to others on the Housing First programme, so we’re looking forward to welcoming more people to future sessions!