Using action learning to tackle food insecurity in Scotland

ABSTRACT

In the context of a dramatic rise in food bank use in Scotland, the A Menu for Change project, delivered by Oxfam Scotland, Child Poverty Action Group in Scotland, Nourish Scotland and The Poverty Alliance, aimed to reduce the need for emergency food aid by improving local responses to food insecurity. Between 2017 and 2019, project officers worked with key stakeholders in Dundee City, East Ayrshire and Fife to identify and address challenges that people experiencing acute food insecurity face in accessing all the financial support and advice to which they are entitled. The project employed a cross-sectoral and multi-level approach in these three local authority areas. This account reviews the way action learning was used by the A Menu for Change project in Scotland, including an example of how one presentation led to practical changes in local referral patterns. The project demonstrated that action learning can be a useful approach for creating, supporting and developing relationships across complex systems and a mechanism for establishing the groundwork for social change. Facilitators learned that there is a need to work closely with stakeholders inside and outside the set to ensure the benefits of reflective learning influence policy and practice change.

KEYWORDS:

• Food poverty
• food insecurity
• complex systems change
• action learning system

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Chelsea Marshall is a senior project officer at Nourish Scotland, working in the area of food insecurity and the right to food; she was a project officer on the A Menu for Change project.

Ruth Cook is Founder and Managing Director of Action Learning Associates; she trains facilitators around the world and is involved in a number of social change projects.

Notes

1 This cross-sectoral working group was tasked to make recommendations about how to better address the complex drivers of food poverty, create a more dignified and sustained food strategy that supports vulnerable people and develop and align collective resources to eradicate food poverty in Scotland.

2 In Scotland, people on low incomes may be able to get a grant from the Scottish Welfare Fund in the event of a financial crisis. This is a one-off payment that helps someone cope during an emergency or disaster, or due to unexpected expenses. Crisis grants may be given as cash or as vouchers, e.g. to buy food or fuel. The applicant may be required to request a hardship payment or benefit advance before being awarded this grant, but crisis grants do not have to be paid back (i.e. not a loan).