Parent engagement in sustaining the nutritional gains from School-Plus-Home Gardens Project and school-based feeding programmes in the Philippines

Urban Farm DB summary

A chapter on the School-Plus-Home Gardens Project (S+HGP) in the Philippines, which promotes greater parent engagement in home and school gardening to sustain nutritional gains under the Department of Education's nationwide School Garden Program and School-Based Feeding Program (SBFP). At the end of a 3-month feeding period, 62% of severely wasted and 70% of wasted child beneficiaries reached normal nutritional status; however, 9 of 14 surveyed schools had repeat beneficiaries from the previous year's SBFP (36–38%), and 14% had been repeat beneficiaries for three consecutive years, due to lack of food at home during the rest of the year, severe illness, and parents' attitudes and values. Factors contributing to successful parent engagement included regular parent-teacher consultations, a participatory development approach, training, parent-child cooking contests using garden produce, and collaboration with local government units.