About the toolkit

This toolkit has a range of printable resources, including a fact sheet, checklist, feedback form and meeting templates. The resources can help providers work with older people to improve their food and dining.

You can download the documents on the Resources page.

Consultation

We asked people involved in aged care to help to create this toolkit.

To develop this toolkit we worked with:

• aged care providers
• workers
• experts
• older people receiving care and their representatives.

Last year, we did an online survey to find out what people know about food focus groups and other ways providers can work with people living in aged care services. We were particularly interested in learning how providers were involving residents and designing programs with them.

We wanted to:

• find real-life examples
• find out about existing food focus groups
• understand the different ways services were using food focus groups
• understand what works and what doesn’t
• find out more about the challenges and barriers people faced when starting a group.

We also had expert consultation on this toolkit by:

• Christine Hopwood, member of the Commission’s Food, Nutrition and Dining Expert Advisory Group
• dietitians and speech pathologists of the Commission’s Food, Nutrition and Dining Advisory Support Unit.

Purpose

This toolkit:

• promotes the benefits of working with residents around food and dining, and how this supports person-centred care
• supports providers to start a food focus group, which is a formal way of working with residents to improve their food and dining experience.

Residents should have a way to:

• provide input and ideas
• raise concerns about their food and dining experience.

And they need to be able to do this in a way that works for them.

Starting a food focus group (as well as using other formal and informal ways of working with residents), gives you a channel to learn about residents’ satisfaction. They can also help you:

• identify what is working well and not so well
• work out how you can design programs and strategies together that meet the needs and preferences of your residents.

You can adapt the recommendations in this toolkit to your service based on:

• what your residents want
• the type and size of your service.