Sheila Kitzinger Programme on Childhood Malnutrition: From grassroots to policy action
The Sheila Kitzinger Programme on Childhood Malnutrition seeks to bring together multi-sectoral stakeholders to address childhood malnutrition during and after the pandemic, with a focus on the local food strategy in Oxfordshire. This programme of work will bring together local grassroots organisations, academics, policy experts, local schools, health and social care professionals and civil society organisations in Oxfordshire, to discuss the systemic issues around childhood malnutrition during and beyond the COVID-19 pandemic, from a variety of perspectives.
Chairs
Shobhana Nagraj, University of Oxford
Dr Shobhana (Shobi) Nagraj is a senior clinical researcher at the Oxford Centre for Global Health Research, and co-director of the Oxford Global Surgery course, University of Oxford. She has a professional background in paediatric surgery and primary care, and a research background in Health Services Research and Implementation Science.
Shobi works closely with rural communities in low-resource settings globally. She is passionate about delivering high-quality, universal health services to women and children. Shobi’s research focuses on how complex innovations can be designed in partnership with communities, to facilitate implementation and sustainability within the communities they serve.
Fiona Steel, Good Food Oxfordshire
Fiona Steel is the CEO at Good Food Oxfordshire (GFO), a network of local food organisations committed to a fairer, healthier and more sustainable food system for Oxfordshire. GFO are currently working on a Food Strategy for Oxfordshire in partnership with our local councils to lead the way towards a food system where everyone in Oxfordshire can eat well every day. Prior to GFO Fiona worked in a range of non-profit organisations on issues of social justice and poverty and also as a management consultant. Fiona is also a Social Worker.
Claire Gray, Oxfordshire County Council
Claire is a Health Improvement Practitioner at Oxfordshire County Council. Working in the Public Health team to influence the health and well-being of individuals, groups, communities, and populations.
Claire brings diverse experience working across the voluntary, academic and local authority sectors. Starting her career as a Community Development and Health worker in some of the most deprived areas in Barnsley, South Yorkshire. Now leading, designing and evolving public health services to prevent ill health and improve people’s health; taking a life course approach to start well, live well and age well. With a continued commitment to tackling inequalities through finding new ways to address avoidable, unfair, and systematic differences in health between different groups of people.
Anant Jani, Oxford Martin School
Anant is an Oxford Martin Fellow at the Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford. He currently works on understanding how we can improve population health through social prescriptions and by addressing social determinants of health. Prior to his position at the University of Oxford, Anant worked in Europe and the Middle East to help healthcare systems within these countries to focus more on value-based healthcare. Anant has a PhD in immunology from Yale University.
Speakers from Oxfordshire
Annie Davy has a background in education both in early years (as a nursery school headteacher) and with adults as former head of a community education college. For the last ten years she has been a freelance leadership consultant, facilitator and coach. She lives in East Oxford where she has been a catalyst for the development of community enterprise projects such as Barracks Lane Community Garden and Flo’s – The Place in the Park. During the pandemic she set up the OX4 Food Crew in partnership with Ark T and other, as an emergency response to the crisis. From this and some family experience of invisible health conditions, she has become increasingly interested in the complex causes of food inequality.
Rizvana Poole is the founder of The Chippy Larder, a community hub based in Chipping Norton. The Chippy Larder aims to Nourish, Empower and Connect Chipping Norton and surrounding villages through projects in Food, Finance, Fitness and Futures. As well as The Chippy Larder, Rizvana has run food projects focusing on healthy, local, seasonal eating and is a Chipping Norton Town Councillor.
Kay Wood is the headteacher of The Swan School, Oxford. She has worked in education since 2007 and has taught and led in outstanding schools across London before becoming the founding headteacher of The Swan. Opening in September 2019, The Swan School was the first brand new secondary school in Oxford for over 60 years. The Swan School is characterised by its emphasis on high expectations and the school is committed to students’ success in both their academic studies and personal development. One way the school does this is through its approach to lunch-times, known as family dining. All staff and students eat together in the middle of the day to help improve child nutrition, build a community, develop social skills, and foster children’s sense of responsibility. Lunches are vegetarian as a way to improve the quality of food on offer whilst reducing our impact on the planet.
Paula Lochrie is an experienced manager having a strategic lead within the Early Years Team, she has worked in Early Education and Childcare for over 20 years. At present she is seconded to the Education COVID-19 Cell as School Improvement Advisor (COVID-19) Lead Officer. She also leads on School Readiness and led on the School Readiness and Lifelong Learning Strategy; working collaboratively with other colleagues and providers to give the best start in life to children.
Paula also works to raise quality and standards within all Early Years provisions and gives support prior to Ofsted inspections, advise on learning and development, welfare requirements, training, quality assurance, business support, and creating new childcare places.
Paula is a skilled trainer focusing on safeguarding and vulnerable learners; delivers safeguarding training and safer recruitment training to practitioners in Oxfordshire and is a member of the OSCB training pool. She also delivers Supervision and Appraisal training and support Early Years Committee members with their roles and responsibilities.
Michael Forester has been working in Sport Development for the last 3 years: The main emphasis of my role at Cherwell District Council (CDC) has been applying for grant funding from NGBs and utilising that to give physical activity opportunities to BAME, women’s, and disability groups. I also oversee the CDC Holiday Activity Hubs which provides sports coaching and activities across the school half-terms and holidays for 5-11 year-olds. This year we successfully applied for the Holiday Activities & Food fund provided by Oxfordshire County Council and took on this new challenge of expanding our Easter and Summer Deliveries to include free food and places for Free School Meal-eligible children – which I am looking forward to talking about.
Charlie Heritage is the Neighbourhood Partnerships Manager at Sanctuary Housing. The neighbourhood’s team is based at Bodicote House in Banbury and looks after Sanctuary communities in the Cherwell area including Banbury, Bicester, Kidlington and Witney. The role of the neighbourhoods team is to build resilience and connection with our customers and their communities. Charlie has worked in Neighbourhoods for 3 years and previously was a Welfare Benefits Officer for Sanctuary Housing and Citizens Advice.
Jill Edge is the Centre Manager of The Sunshine Centre, a local charitable organisation based the most deprived area in Banbury Oxfordshire. The Sunshine Centre was established 23 years ago and offers services to promote the wellbeing of families and to build a stronger, safer community. The services and activities are extensive and includes for example courses to reduce the impact of Domestic Violence, Parenting Programmes, Individual Support for Families, Safeguarding, Promoting Good Mental Health, Community Larder. Specialist assessments and reports for Family Court hearings are lead by her. Jill Edge has worked in the voluntary sector for over 30 years. She holds a B.SC Hons Degree (Education and Psychology) and a MA in Childhood Studies
Catherine McNeill has a strong interest in the way that environment can impact population health and is a Trustee of the charity Healthy Abingdon. She believes that a grass-roots approach to basic cooking and food skills is essential to help ensure that access to good food is more equitably distributed. Catherine has a (distant) background in physical health and recently qualified as a Registered Nutritionist (ANutr).
Dr Hosnieh Djafari-Marbini is an NHS Consultant anaesthetist and a Labour council’s first migrant champion, campaigning for migrant rights driven by her own lived experience as a first-generation migrant.
She is a passionate advocate for truly universal healthcare nationally and internationally, having campaigned with US colleagues for Medicare For All. Her areas of expertise include race as a social determinant of health and removal of structural barriers in healthcare and within institutions in meeting the basic needs of diverse populations most recently in the area of vaccine access. She was recently recognised for this work by being awarded the pandemic hero award by the high sheriff of Oxfordshire.
As Oxford’s migrant champion and a city councillor in one of the most deprived wards in the country, Hosnieh works and has worked on a daily basis with diverse communities to make sure the voices of all are heard, and needs met by removing structural inequalities in our institutions. Hosnieh is due to chair the Oxford City Council’s review into child poverty aiming to embed institutional memory in tackling this scourge. Twitter: @HosniehMarbini
Invited Academics involved in global childhood malnutrition projects
Professor Sumantra Ray, NNEdPro Founding Chair and Executive Director
Sumantra (Shumone) Ray is a Licensed Medical Doctor as well as a Registered Nutritionist (Public Health), with special interests in Cardiovascular Disease Prevention and Nutrition Education in Health Systems. He is cross-appointed in Cambridge as a Director of Research at the University of Cambridge and Co-Lead for the Food, Nutrition and Education Work Package for the TIGR2ESS Programme in India (2017-21) led from Cambridge and supported by UK Research and Innovation’s Global Challenges Research Fund. Additionally, Shumone holds a fractional personal chair appointment as Professor of Global Nutrition, Health and Disease at Ulster University as well as a number of honorary/visiting professorial appointments more widely, including Imperial College London in the UK, and the University of Wollongong in Australia.
Professor Daniel Del Rio, University of Parma
Dan is a full professor of human nutrition and head of the School of Advanced Studies on Food and Nutrition at the University of Parma, a Visiting Professor at the School of Biomedical Sciences, Ulster University, and the scientific director of the NNEdPro Global Centre for Nutrition and Health. He is the Editor in Chief of the International Journal of Food Sciences and Nutrition and a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of The Joint Programming Initiative ‘A Healthy Diet for a Healthy Life’ (JPI-HDHL) of the European Union. Dan’s publication track record counts several scientific papers in ISI journals, and he has been listed, since 2014, among the Clarivate/Web of Science Highly Cited Researchers. Dan has been honoured by the Italian President with the title of Commendatore (Commander) of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic for research achievements and has been growing a very successful group of young and promising researchers for the last 10 years.
Professor Francesca Scazzina, University of Parma
Francesca is an Associate Professor of human nutrition at University of Parma. Since 2009, being involved in food educational projects implemented in primary schools of the Parma area, Francesca acquired a deep experience in educational health learning programs and children population surveys. She is secretary of regional section of the Italian Society of Human Nutrition, Senior Collaborator of NNEdPro (Cambridge, UK), member of the scientific committee of the Giocampus Project (Parma). Moreover, she is co-founder and Scientific Coordinator of MADEGUS (Parma), spin-off of the University of Parma, focused on developing specific strategies and educational tools to improve nutritional knowledge, dietary habits and lifestyle. She is also working in the framework of diet sustainability.
