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Food Empowerment at IFSSA


Food is an essential part of our lives. More than simply providing nourishment and sustenance for our bodies, it can feed greater parts of ourselves and our community. We've decided to prioritize addressing food insecurity in a forward manner looking to leverage its potential to empower people to lead healthier and better-connected lives.

How did we arrive at food empowerment?

Two major evaluation projects were conducted to help us better understand our clients:

  1. 1.The Long-term Client Study
    1. a.IFSSA wanted to take an approach that was rigorous, based on data, and client focussed. Together with NorQuest College, the Edmonton Social Planning Council and the University of Calgary’s Social Work department, we designed a study, hired a practicum student, and conducted a series of intensive focus groups that gave us rich data on awareness of IFSSA’s services, barriers, and access. 
  • A significant increase in the number of long-term clients; clients who had been with IFSSA for more than 3 years.This number was concerning to IFSSA because it has been growing faster than IFSSA can sustain and if left unchecked could see the organization fall into deficit, or less able to serve. 
  • A study by the Edmonton Social Planning Council that showed 70% of our clients weren’t accessing other services. 

Over the summer of 2019 we trained a group of 20+ third party facilitators to conduct interviews, and focus groups. These facilitators were tasked with asking the candid questions developed by the steering committee about IFSSA’s services. A day long meeting hosted a series of focus groups and interviews where clients were compensated for their time.

Key learnings from phase 1...

  • Underlying reasons for dependence on food bank not readily apparent
  • Dependence may be a result of habituation
  • Client awareness of options seems low. 
  • Need to ask questions about isolation. How healthy is their social network. Is their network facilitating opportunities for advancement? 
  • Need to peer deeper into  structural poverty? 
  • Possible to categorize the types of poverty…
    • Disability
    • Mental health
    • Habituation
    • Economic
    • Skill deficits
  • Need to explore financial literacy 
    • Especially for high-rent individuals 

Long-Term Client Study → Project Impact

One of the key learnings from the long-term client study was that our hopes for our clients, that they would use the food bank, be informed of other services, and break free of poverty wasn’t happening. 

Knowing this we decided we need to explore structural flaws, indicators, goals, and process to emphasize greater self-accountability on our part, information sharing, and dialogue. 

Diving deeper into the client study, it was clear that the common theme linking the findings in the client study was “learning & information sharing.” We needed to do a better job engaging with our clients in a more systematic way. 

Knowing this we began to look at our intake system, we applied to be accepted into “Project Impact,” an organizational research incubator supported by the United Way & City of Edmonton. 

  1. 1.Project Impact
    1. a. Focused on our intake system. Clients come to IFSSA with a multitude of complex issues. As an organization, however, we’ve defaulted to measuring deficiencies like the need for food hampers and financial support. We neglect to analyze transformational impacts and larger changes in our clients’ lives like the skills they gain, the goals they set, and the barriers they overcome.
    2. b.Themes that emerged included: Trust, Perception, Connection, Family, Referrals, Barriers, Giving Back, Communication, and Goals.

These two projects led us to think more critically about our Essential Needs services and more broadly about food empowerment. The data collected from both the Long Term Client Study and Project Impact along with Food Empowerment Research conducted over the summer of 2020 provide data-informed approaches that ensure that our offerings remain evidence-based and aligned with our clients' unique needs.

The challenges and findings identified in these studies pointed towards the need for further research to help us answer questions like:

  • What does empowering our community through food look like?
  • What are our current strengths/areas for growth within Essential Needs?
  • How can we build solutions to address the root causes of food insecurity in our community?
  • Who should we be involving as we build these food empowerment solutions?
  • How can we build food empowerment solutions that are sustainable and meaningful?

Considerations


​COVID 19

The pandemic has both impacted the foodbank's operation, as well as contributes to the reasons why clients access the food bank and other IFSSA social services. Food empowerment in light of a pandemic must remain adaptive and responsive as circumstances evolve. IFSSA conducted a survey at the beginning of the pandemic. When participants were asked about the biggest challenges they're facing as a result of COVID-19. These are the top ones that came up (in order of most frequent to least frequent answers) :

  • Feeling lonely or isolated
  • Challenges to income and employment
  • Mental health
  • Providing enough food or the right kinds of food for myself and/or my family
  • Losing status as a worker or student

Unique client needs

The predominant research available, with respect to food security, targets vulnerable populations who experience varying pain points (i.e. substance use/addiction, homelessness) rather than the ones experienced by the vast majority of IFSSA’s clientele (language/cultural barriers).

Shared client themes

The vast majority of IFSSA's clients are:

  • From diverse ethnocultural backgrounds:
    • Newcomers to Canada (i.e. immigrants, refugees)
    • About half of the clients that access the food bank are originally either from Syria or Somalia (~40%).
    • Over 50% of the clients that access the food bank speak Arabic as their native tongue. 
    •  Over 50% of the clients are naturalized/born Canadian citizens (incl. Indigenous/First Nations clients)
    • Intergenerational clients
  • Face multiple barriers
    • Low-income households
    • Language limitations
    • Victims of domestic violence
    • Senior citizens



Food Empowerment

Food Empowerment seeks to address food insecurity more holistically by examining the systems that lead to food insecurity, tailoring solutions that tackle root causes, and support clients to flourish beautifully.

Existing Food Empowerment Initiatives:

1) Essential Needs → Essential Care

IFSSA’s Essential Needs program is undergoing a structuring process to better serve our clients. The aim is for the program to be sustainable, despite the growing demand and need for food security. 

We began with one essential change in April 2019. Our hampers program moved from a pre-made hamper distribution system to a needs-based system in partnership with Edmonton's Food Bank. While it is essential for people facing food insecurity to have access to food and resources, enabling clients with the dignity of choice when they access our services is essential to empowering them to make healthy choices. This new system has had a positive impact on our clients and has resulted in zero-waste.

Over the past year, we have seen an average of 35-40 families access IFSSA’s food hampers, every single day. This number is increasing every year, as more individuals in our community face difficult financial constraints, social inequity, and family challenges. Our partnership with Edmonton’s Food Bank has been a huge blessing for us, as they continue to support us in meeting this increasing demand. Last year alone, Edmonton’s Food Bank donated close to 118,871 kgs of food for our clients - this is nearly $234,000 worth of products. 

IFSSA's Essential Care area is not an isolated entity within IFSSA, it serves as the entry point to a variety of services and supports available to support clients' complex and evolving challenges.

An estimated 90% of total clients have received a food hamper from IFSSA. (2020)  

Food is a very powerful tool that connects individuals, families and communities. Addressing food insecurity appropriately means shifting the focus to empowering individuals and their families by relating to food in a dignified manner. Building trust with clients is essential to this process, as this will help us to better understand their needs and help address the root causes to their concerns.

2) Community Kitchen Pilot Project

Purpose:

  1. 1.Families come together to cook meals together in a more economical and social manner
  2. 2.Participants leave with information on pertinent subjects (like Nutrition, parenting across cultures, finding jobs)  & nutritious meals they can serve their family for the week
  3. 3.People are welcome to come regardless of means – a sliding scale determines their financial contribution with IFSSA subsidizing low-income families
  4. 4.Families are welcome – kids are encouraged to cook with parents, childminding is provided
  5. 5.Skills are cultivated – the collective kitchen can be a springboard for starting a food-based business, practicing language,  and building skills (team management, event planning, childcare, social work, etc.).

The Kitchen targeted:

    • Low or middle income or socially isolated families 
    • People having difficulty meeting and creating new friends. 
    • Passionate people with the capacity to mingle and network with other peers in the community. 
    • People with time and interest to learn meal preparation and new recipes. 

So, why did it stop?

After running a few sessions with participants, we realized that participants had differing goals from those outlined by IFSSA. Participants hoped to learn skills and obtain certificates with the intention of pursuing independent catering businesses. Because of this misalignment in intentions and outcomes, we realized that the community kitchen concept needed further refinement, and so the program was discontinued.

“Food is our common ground, a universal experience” - James Beard

Food Empowerment Reimagined

Food to our clients serves a purpose greater than providing ingredients for meals, rather, it serves as a connector to IFSSA’s services and access to a community. Food Empowerment serves to leverage this relationship!


Defining Food Empowerment for IFSSA:

What we noticed in conducting this research is that the demographic that IFSSA serves is unique and does not fit the predominant mould of research findings pertaining to food security. For example, most food banks service inner-city folks, struggling with addiction or homelessness or folks from Western cultural backgrounds. And though there are some overlaps (for instance, mental health concerns, and low-income status) our clients' needs are fundamentally different. Our clients struggle with financial literacy challenges, skills development/articulation, language and settlement barriers etc.

Therefore, the food security solutions we curate will borrow from elements of other organizations, but will ultimately be a unique hybrid solution.

Trust: The main ingredient

  • Client place a huge degree of trust in IFSSA and that relates to the programs they expect from us and the community connections they want us to provide 
  • They come to us not because they’re problematizing their faith but because their faith is essential to them 
  • Clients view IFSSA as having the closest values to their own 
  • This impacts our definition of professional support, we have a higher degree of responsibility

Principles

    1. a.The community in mind, and at heart
    2. b.Empowerment through education
    3. c.Dignified access 
    4. d.Serving holistically 

Food Empowerment Solution Goals:

We want to make the following shifts to the way we empower our clients with food:

  1. 1.Food security → food empowerment
  2. 2.Measuring client deficiencies → Assessing client assets 
  3. 3.Transactional → transformational 
  4. 4.Generic offerings → Individually tailored offerings/referrals 
  5. 5.One-way, service-to-client interactions → conversational feedback loops between clients and service providers
  6. 6.Stretched-thin capacity → a food empowerment community (staff, volunteers, clients).

Challenges our clients experience:

Our clients face unique challenges and barriers that result in them presenting simply as ‘food insecure’, however, beneath the surface, our clients require support for a host of the underlying root causes to food insecurity including but not limited to: 

  • Income-related challenges 
    • Unaffordable housing
    • Unemployment
  • Intercultural barriers
    • Language limitations 
    • Racism, prejudice, and discrimination 
    • Sense of isolation 
    • Settlement challenges (financial literacy, Canadian systems navigation etc.)
  • Mental health-related concerns

IFSSA is well-positioned to pivot its operations and services towards food empowerment solutions that empower clients to recognize the assets they possess and the direct impacts that they can have on society when exercised. The demographic that IFSSA serves is unique and does not fit the predominant mould of research findings pertaining to food security.

Food empowerment at IFSSA adopts socially innovative models researched from a variety of sectors and spaces and applies a unique blend of solutions that seek to address the systemic barriers that lead to food insecurity.

Diving Deep Into The Future of Food Empowerment.

What does food empowerment at the food hub...

Feel like? Warm, “to the tooth”, comforting, welcoming, satisfying...

Smell like? Fresh, “like home”, ...

Look like? Colourful, alive...

Taste like? Wholesome, fresh, filling...

Is? Healthy, nutrient-dense, diverse, flavourful ...

The Prophet ﷺ said, “Eat together and not separately, for the blessing is associated with the company.” (Ibn Majah)”

Concept: IFSSA Food Hub

Founded on four foundational pillars, the IFSSA Food Hub can curate food empowerment solutions in a central space.

Education

Community

Food Skills

Health

How?

  • Human Resources and capacity limitations are the greatest factors in supporting the enhancement of IFSSA’s future food empowerment initiative. Staffing and a robust volunteer program are essential to filling the gaps that exist between where we currently are and where we would like to go. 
  • Evaluation and Impact Assessment: In order to better understand the issues our clients face, meaningful evaluation tools are required. Evaluation needs to move past tracking hampers and the number of clients accessing the food bank. Rather, the evaluation plan should look to assess the quality of support that the clients are receiving. This can look like assessing:
    • Whether or not a client has been referred to a community support/organization. 
    • The length of time the client accesses the food bank, and the frequency in which they receive hampers
    • The social connections and community connections made
    • The increase in a skillset that the clients may acquire (i.e. language or employment supports).
  • Healthy feedback loops need to be established with clients and community members. It would be recommended that a group of community members help steer the food empowerment programs at IFSSA (comprised of a board member, staff members, management, clients, and community stakeholders) to ensure that the food empowerment initiatives remain. 

When?

  • A phased approach focused on leveraging current systems, practices, and processes
    • Food empowerment at IFSSA requires a foundation to grow from, and the IFSSA foodbank has a demonstrated history of empowering clients through culturally and religiously sensitive food hampers. Future food empowerment initiatives at IFSSA will evolve food hamper distribution (transactional) into initiatives that require clients to invest in themselves and their communities (participatory). 
  • Focused on capacity building as opposed to a timeline. 
    • Food empowerment is a massive undertaking that requires time and testing to inform its design. Additionally, food empowerment is an ongoing process that presents opportunities and challenges which require IFSSA to remain nimble, responsive, and adaptive while balancing sustainability and sustainable evidence-informed practice. 

Next Steps: Today, Tomorrow, Soon...

Today:

We embed food empowerment practices by:

  • Making qualitative adjustments to the food bank and the food hampers
  • Pairing food hampers with curated recipes and resources (on QR codes for easy mobile access)
  • Enhanced intake practices and training modules for Essential Needs staff

Tomorrow:

  • Financial Literacy programming (original and engaging) 
  • Acquiring a commercial-grade refrigerator to provide healthier (fresh) food options
  • Roll out (in-person/remote) food skills programming 
  • Community kitchen 2.0 in partnership with Edmonton stakeholders
  • integrating screening questions that align with the Self Sufficiency Matrix and identify key indicators of food insecurity in families and individuals.
  • Develop training modules for staff to recognize and respond to common factors that disempower clients from flourishing
  • Develop grocery store literacy courses that empower clients to make informed food buying decisions.

Soon... :

  • Providing food-related micro-business supports for newcomers
  • Rolling out a volunteer program that partners with the Green Room for a youth food program.
  • And so much more!

The IFSSA Community Food Hub is a prototyped food empowerment initiative that is modelled off of the successes of Community Food Centres Canada (CFCs) © which is a longstanding thread in the fabric of Canada’s food security landscape.

CFCs aim to:

  • Improve people’s ability to access healthy food in a dignified way;
  • Increase healthy food knowledge, skills, and behaviours;
  • Decrease social isolation and increase people’s connection to supports;
  • Create opportunities for people to take action on the issues that affect their lives,
  • Empower people to be volunteers and leaders.

(https://cfccanada.ca/en/Our-Work/Community-Food-Centres)

CFC Programming is based on three pillars:

  • Healthy Food access
  • Food Skills
  • Education and Engagement

Advantages & Challenges with the CFC model:

No model is perfect when it comes to addressing food insecurity in Canada, outlined below are some pros/cons of the CFC model:

Advantages

Challenges

Well established in Canada

Don't collaborate with existing systems (i.e. food banks etc.)

Services a variety of age demographics (seniors, youth etc.)

Lacks guidelines/practices related to diverse communities, food choice, and health outcomes



IFSSA is positioned to benchmark principles, ideas, and key building blocks from the CFC model and other community-centred food hubs in Canada to inform its unique and custom design.


Who? ...It takes an Ummah

Food empowerment initiatives demand that the focus not be solely placed on one best solution, rather, that looks at a host of innovative and systemic approaches to interventions. These interventions cannot be done by IFSSA alone, and require a team of stakeholders (from various sectors) to support and get involved with to successfully implement, evaluate and improve food empowerment programming in Edmonton. This includes leveraging prior and ongoing partnerships with various organizations such as the Edmonton Food Bank, local mosques, the City of Edmonton, etc. The role that IFSSA can have in addressing food insecurity is one that guides people to a support network comprised of organizations in the Edmonton area that provide a variety of services and opportunities.


IFSSA Reports Referenced:

Machine Learning for Social Service & IFSSA Strategic Plan (2019)

other References