South West Food Community: A Place-Based Pilot Study to Understand the Food Security System

Abstract

The objectives of this study were to: (i) Identify initiatives supporting healthy food availability, access and utilisation in the South West region of Western Australia (WA); and (ii) understand how they were functioning as a system to enhance community-level food security (FS). This study used a novel approach; a Systemic Innovation Lab, to interview initiative leaders/stakeholders about their FS initiative. Initiative characteristics measured included those which were associated with creating the effective conditions for FS systems change. Information was uploaded to an innovative online tool, creating a ‘transition card’ (matrix) of initiatives and partnering organisations. Fifty-one participants reported on 52 initiatives. Initiatives were most likely to possess characteristics relating to reinforcing changes towards an enhanced way of working to address FS and creating disruption to the old way of working. The initiative characteristic that initiatives were least likely to possess related to identifying the different causal factors of FS, and working with other stakeholders on specific components of FS. The South West Food Community pilot project used a comprehensive yet defined approach to demonstrate the value of a place-based, co-design project. Participants and stakeholders could strengthen specific initiative characteristics to facilitate enhanced community-level FS.

Nutrition and Vulnerable Groups

“…Similarly to developing countries, cities and neighborhoods in developed countries are experiencing a greater emergence of vulnerable populations, thus requiring an informed workforce to support these communities. This workforce needs to identify modifiable factors that can be incorporated into future schemes and food security interventions in order to efficiently manage food shortages and address drivers in the immediate and broader geographical locations [17,18]. A greater understanding from the workforce is required, as evidence suggests a divergence in views between those who address the problem and those with the lived experience of food insecurity [19].…”

“…To better understand the practice and policy environment of the broader food system, barriers and enablers have been examined [17]. This issue has outlined novel applications of a Systemic Innovation Lab, which capture initiatives within a defined local geographical area that support community food security [18]. This innovative system examines systems change.…”

South West Food Community: how government and community initiatives are supporting systemic change towards enhanced food security

“…The South West Food Community pilot was implemented in the South West region of Western Australia (WA), a region covering almost 24,000 square kilometres 16 , with towns deemed Inner Regional or Outer Regional 17 . Given the initial steps of this work have been previously published in detail, 18 a summary will be provided herein.…”

“…The Explore stage included stakeholder engagement and interviews to collect in‐depth initiative information and assess them against 36 desirable characteristics identified in the literature as supporting transition towards a more effective way of addressing complex problems. These 36 characteristics were embedded within nine Focus Areas, their plain language versions as follows: 1) Shaking up the current way of working; 2) Transitioning towards a better way of working; 3) Organisations working in new ways; 4) Locking in the new way of working; 5) Disseminating information throughout the system; 6) Aligning community organisations’ work with government priorities; 7) Community organisations shaping government policies; 8) Government supporting community initiatives; 9) Government sharing information about community initiatives 18 . Further detail about these Focus Area characteristics has been published elsewhere 19,20 …”

“…Descriptive statistics were generated by the Tool for Systemic Change ‘Reports’ function, which provided the number of initiatives that possessed characteristics within each Focus Area and participant comments relating to how their initiative possessed the characteristics. See Godrich et al 18 for a supplementary file containing interview questions mapped to the Focus Areas and corresponding characteristics. Open‐ended responses contained in the Microsoft Excel spreadsheet were imported into QSR NVivo software (QSR International Pty Ltd.…”