What’s cooking?

Company news

Jul 18, 2013

Some of our residents have developed a passion for cooking, thanks to a local cookery course.

Six of Penfold Lodge’s residents recently joined a local 10 week cookery course at the Clacton campus of the Colchester institute and loved it so much they’d like to go back and do more courses.

Service users Barbara, Howard, Neve, Richard, Gareth and Steven were joined by their support workers on an NCFE accredited foundation course, which had a particular focus on cookery, as well as budgeting and team work.

The course, which involved a couple of hours at the college every week, saw service users being set weekly tasks which involved them budgeting and shopping for all the ingredients for a set menu of their choice.

It took a bit of effort to get the service users motivated, but once they were into it, they couldn’t wait to get to college each week. Each of them received a pass that made them feel like the other students coming and going from the college. The change of scene was really welcome and they could show off their work back at Penfold Lodge – giving other service users and staff the chance to try the food they had made.

Now everyone wants to cook meals and shop for themselves all the time. And they’re already planning which course to do next.