The Healthy Eating, Active Living Matters (HEALing Matters) program is being scaled up across residential out-of-home care (OOHC) in Victoria, Australia and is providing young people with the knowledge, skills and resources to promote better health through healthy eating and activity. HEALing Matters was piloted as the HEAL program, a dual-intervention program that aimed to provide young people living in residential care with education and opportunities to improve their eating and physical activity habits, while simultaneously building the capacity of their carers to promote, encourage and role model healthy lifestyle behaviours. Qualitative findings indicated that HEAL resulted in increased participation in community sport, increased availability of sports equipment, healthy meal preparation and healthy food availability and improvements in perceived young person self-esteem and independent living skills. Findings also revealed some limitations of the program. Following the pilot, a participatory methodological approach was used to better understand how to align the HEAL program with individual and community needs.

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Summary Health outcomes for young people living in residential out-of-home care are poor. There has been increased emphasis on the need to prioritize preventative support and upskill residential care workers to better meet young people's health needs. The aim of this study was to examine the food quality and physical activity environment in residential care houses in Victoria, Australia prior to staff undertaking Healthy Eating, Active Living Matters (HEAL) training; 102 residential care houses participated. House representatives completed an online survey exploring: (1) physical activity equipment and engagement and (2) weekly food budget and expenditure. Findings The average weekly food expenditure per household was $318.98 (SD = $106.51), with variation between different sized households. The majority (61%) of houses’ weekly food expenditure was spent on ultra-processed food products that are ready to eat with no/little preparation, in comparison to 36% spent on unprocessed foods (fresh fruit and vegetables). The majority of houses reported having two types of equipment. Young people were not often engaged in physical and/or recreational activities in their community. Application Residential care houses in Victoria require additional supports to ensure that young people are supported to eat well and be active at home and in the community. HEALing Matters aims to provide this, by offering professional development for residential carers to better facilitate engagement in physical activity and healthy eating among the young people in their care. If successful, HEALing Matters may provide an effective pathway to improved health and wellbeing outcomes for young people in residential care.