Call for Applications – Action Planning for Children, Youth and Food

Author: Ravenna

Posted: December 21, 2012

Categories: Edible Education Network / Food in the News / Opportunities / Working Group News

The Ontario Children, Youth and Food Network (CYFN) is calling for applications to help to undertake an Action Planning Process.

 The CYFN is a new network in Ontario that shares a vision of having healthy food environments across Ontario where children and youth have equal access to healthy and sustainably produced food, and where food literacy is supported through a range of educational and hands-on activities.

The mission of the network is to bring groups working to connect children and youth with good food together to share resources, ideas, and experience, to work together on advocacy, and to make it easier for people across Ontario to get children and youth eating, growing, cooking, celebrating, and learning about healthy, local and sustainably produced food.

The network currently has a basic strategic plan that will guide the development and direction of the network. We are now beginning a process of creating 6 distinct action plans, which correspond to each of the CYFN’s 6 priority areas. These priority areas are:

1. Integrating food into the curriculum
2. Working outside of the classroom to teach children and youth about food
3. Establishing and maintaining children’s gardens in schools and in communities
4. Establishing and maintaining culinary programs for children and youth
5. Getting local, sustainably produced foods to children and youth in schools
6. Advancing healthy student nutrition programs

The aim of these six action plans is to identify how the network, through cross-provincial collaboration can advance our vision. These action plans should focus on how we can move from isolated initiatives across the province to transformed food environments for all children.  While each action plan will be developed separately, they will be woven together into one cohesive plan.

We expect that many groups will be involved in creating the plans, but we are looking specifically for applications to lead the development of each plan. Successful groups will receive $3000 to support their action planning work. It is expected that each plan will require approximately 100-150 hours of staff time to complete and that this funding will be used to pay for that staff time. If an applicant group has the ability to contribute additional funding or resources to the development of a plan or plans, this is welcome.

Each Action Plan is expected to include:

• A summary of the current environment and needs (building on an existing environmental scan and needs assessment)
• Goals and objectives;
• Recommendation for how to achieve goals and objectives;
• Priorities, timelines, roles and responsibilities;
• Concrete next steps;
• A resource and funding plan; and
• A policy or government relations plan (if necessary).

Role of Successful Applicants

The roles and responsibilities expected of a group or organization receiving resources to undertake this action planning is as follows:

• Analyze the existing environmental scan and needs assessment data for gaps
• Undertake further investigation to fill any significant gaps
• Write up a plan-specific environmental scan and needs assessment
• Develop clear goals and SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, time limited) objectives the network to pursue in the specific priority area
• Develop a set of priority actions to achieve those objectives
• Develop a 3-5 year plan for how to undertake those priority actions including who should undertake them, when, and how they should be resourced
• Identify priority actions that can be taken in the next year, using limited resources, to enable the key actions in the plan to be implemented.
• Identify potential sources of funding to enable the implementation of the plan.
• Identify any key policy objectives and opportunities to advance the plan

Throughout the process, applicants are expected to consult with key stakeholders to gather ideas, priorities, and connections and to obtain feedback on drafts of the plan. Key stakeholders will be identified by the successful applicants and through the initial scan and needs assessment. The Project Coordinator can support access to survey software, conference call, website, social media, and other technology needs that successful applicants might identify.

Timeline

• January 11, 2013 Applications Due
• mid-January 2013: Successful applicants will be selected
• February 7^th or 9^th 2013: Successful applicants attend a day-long training in collaborative and strategic action planning
• February – July 2013: Successful applications create independent action plans
• July 2013: Successful applicants come together for a day-long session to identify common priorities and activities, and to begin to merge plans into one cohesive plan
• August-September 2013: Successful Applicants complete the action planning process.

Groups may apply to lead more than one strategic plan.

Evaluation of applications will be based on

• the alignment of this action planning with the group’s existing mandate and activities,
• the groups’s demonstrated leadership in the area(s) that they are proposing to develop the action plan in
• the geographic diversity of the group’s existing networks
• the alignment of the group’s activities with the vision of the CYFN
• the group’s demonstrated commitment to collaborative, cross-provincial activities
• The group’s experience in collaboration and ideas related to engagement
• The group’s ability to implement the plan with the resources provided

Please send any questions regarding the action planning process to ravenna@sustainontario.ca

Please use the form below to apply.