Sausage Roll Case Study

Case Study – Monday Morning Sausage Roll
On a Monday morning – a group of young people entered their training space to
find that their regular breakfast of sausage rolls was no longer available. The
management team in the youth centre had cut the sausage rolls, as a budget
saving measure. There had been no consultation with the young people, or the
youth work staff, prior to this action. Without negotiation, this transformative action
from the board caused upset, anger and fear amongst young people.

 

Personal
Their key youth worker spent time with the young people, processing the feelings
behind the upset and anger. Initially, some of the young people wanted to disrupt
the space, they wanted to vent their anger by breaking furniture. After talking it
through, what transpired was that several of the young people were coming out of
the weekend feeling hungry, the sausage roll represented the promise of having
their hunger satisfied. The fear of being hungry lay behind the upset and anger.

The youth worker explained that there were other food options available, but all of
these involved sitting down at a table with cutlery. This was something that brought
discomfort and a sense of shame as eating around a table was something
unfamiliar to several of the young people. The sausage roll was eaten outside,
chatting with their friends, all the while adjusting to the space and using the
sausage roll as a way to regulate their emotional state. Knowing that this was
available to start the day brought a sense of security, belonging and membership.

The sausage rolls were removed for budget savings reasons, but, if they were
understood as having a wider function, part of nurturing young people’s wellbeing,
they might have been seen as supporting the wider educational context of the
centre. As well as supporting young people to regulate their behaviour and feel
secure in the space, food can impact young people’s ability to concentrate, and to
focus in a learning environment, cutting the sausage rolls, would work against the
purpose of the training centre.

In addition, young people’s choice and autonomy regarding the food they
consumed had been negatively impacted. From a certain age, food becomes
something we choose, when this choice is taken away, it can impact our sense of
agency, autonomy and personal growth and development.

 

Local
Youth workers have continued to observe the impact of rising inflation and the cost
of living crisis on communities – and how this can at times manifest itself as a
reliance on services outside the family to meet their needs. This raises the issue of
food security.

In this instance, young people were encouraged to develop an action plan by the
key youth worker to share their frustration with the management. She wanted the
group to see themselves as having power in the situation, i.e., developing an action
plan, engaging in constructive dialogue with the management, helping the
management to understand the wider role of the sausage roll in ultimately
supporting educational outcomes and well-being.

Young people were encouraged to think about the issue further, and how similar
issues might be affecting other people in their community. They had discussions
about the existence of food banks, and what power these young people might have
to influence change in their area. A local connection was made between the youth
centre and the foodbank to facilitate young people to learn about the issue of food
security, and how it was impacting families in their communities.

The conflict had arisen between the management team and the young people – it
had been a blind spot for the management, – but a youth work process
empowered young people to engage in dialogue to realise their own power and
effect change (they got the sausage rolls re-instated two days a week), not just
individually but collectively.

 

National
Young people are often limited when it comes to choosing the food they want to
eat, whether it’s in school or other settings. This issue identified the limited scope
young people have to exercise choice when it comes to food they consume. Where
this intersects with low-income, it raises the issue of food poverty or food insecurity
as something that is prevalent in communities throughout Ireland and is a national
issue. Research from Barnardos in 2022 found that 3 in 10 participants witnessed
child food poverty first-hand.

Three in four (74%) of those who witnessed child food poverty first-hand noticed an
impact on the child’s physical development, while a similarly high number saw how
it affected their social and emotional development (70%). Food poverty also
affected the child’s education (65%) and ability to maintain relationships (44%).
With inflation (the rate at which prices for goods and services rise) at an all-time
high, young people and their families are not getting the opportunity to choose the
food they eat, impacting development and other key outcomes for these families.

Research from Barnardos shows that the number of parents using food banks and
relying on food donations has doubled, while the cost of shopping items has gone
up right across the board. Meanwhile, the crisis has also created winners – the food
billionaires and the powerful food companies and traders who are able to profit
from the current system.

 

Global
Being food insecure means that you have less capacity to control your food
supply. Choices are taken away from you. While the young people in this case
study were moved to disrupt their learning environment because of the threat to
their food supply, globally, not having access to food is linked directly to conflict
escalation. And more often than not, climate change and conflict come together
as inter-related issues. Food is an essential resource, when its supply gets
interrupted, young people and their family’s lives are interrupted, impacting growth
and development, and progress in all areas of their lives.

Lack of adequate nutrition for children impacted by climate change and conflict, at
an early age negatively impacts on development. If a child doesn’t have the right
nutrition in their diet, when a baby, they are not curious [and] not exploring. And if
you aren’t curious and exploring, you’re not learning. Hunger has a direct
relationship with poor educational outcomes.

And while global food corporations make unprecedented profit, lack of capacity to
influence food choice, is a local as well as a global issue. In a time when food
suppliers are reaping unprecedented profit, a greater reliance on markets, financial
actors and trade liberalization will not fix the broken global food system. In reality,
we need to better regulate markets and create fairer and more flexible trade rules
for low-income countries that allow them to build stronger local food systems.

While the management of the training centre were responding to the rising cost of
food, as a budgetary issue, the young people showed that access to a choice of
food plays a key role in learning and development. They demonstrated a frustration
and anger at seeing their food choice restricted, particularly where they were
coming to the centre hungry.

Conflict and interruption to food supply are often an intertwined issue, with the
World Food Programme suggesting; “… it is clear that hunger can exacerbate
conflict. Food shortages deepen existing fault-lines, fuelling grievances. This is
particularly the case where poverty and inequality are already present.”