Q&A
MOFP's community engagement and impact measurement
0:24:50
·
3 min
Council Member Amanda Farías asks about MOFP's community engagement strategy and how they measure the combined impact of different food access programs. Rachel Atcheson explains their approach and recent initiatives.
- MOFP primarily works behind the scenes, coordinating with agencies that directly interface with residents
- They rely on agencies like DSS and the Office of Food and Nutrition Services for community engagement
- MOFP implemented surveys this year as part of their good food purchasing initiative to gather feedback
- They are working on developing metrics to measure the combined impact of different food access programs, with this year serving as a baseline
Amanda Farías
0:24:50
Okay.
0:24:51
Great.
0:24:51
And then what is, the Mayor's Office of Food Policy's community engagement strategy?
0:24:55
How do you folks work in food justice communities, folks that have inequitable access to healthy food, or often the low income communities of color that we have throughout the city?
Rachel Atcheson
0:25:06
Yeah.
0:25:07
So our our work is mostly, a, behind the scenes approach in the sense of we are coordinating with the agencies that serve food.
0:25:15
We are not directly interfacing with residents, for instance.
0:25:19
So we really, are heavily dependent on the agencies that do, those interactions, whether that's DSS who, works, hand in hand with residents, who are, participating in SNAP, or with, the office of food nutrition services with school lunch, for instance, with the 7,000 workers that they have distributing school lunches.
0:25:43
There's a multitude of sort of, ways in which, we have community engagement.
0:25:48
And we're actually going to be, giving a webinar, in December on community engagement, with the the public engagement unit.
Amanda Farías
0:25:55
And how often are you getting that feedback from food food insecure communities and how that's impacting the work, the goals, the strategic plan?
Rachel Atcheson
0:26:05
So we, just this year, implemented surveys, as a part of our good food purchasing initiative, where we're actually, you know, asking people to fill out surveys, about their, their, evaluation of the food.
0:26:23
And so this is the 1st year that we are doing that, and we're excited to to, get some metrics.
0:26:28
But this is the 1st year that that will be our our baseline.
Amanda Farías
0:26:31
Okay.
0:26:32
And how are you measuring the combined impact of different food access programs, like HealthBooks and SNAP, in different neighborhoods?
Rachel Atcheson
0:26:42
Can you repeat can you repeat the question?
Amanda Farías
0:26:44
Yeah.
0:26:45
Sure.
0:26:45
How are we how are you folks measuring the combined impact of the different, food access programs we have Yes.
0:26:51
For example, like Health Bucks and SNAP at the same time in the same neighborhoods?
Qiana Mickie
0:26:58
Is it a question for the Office of Urban Agriculture or for Food Policy?
Amanda Farías
0:27:02
I'm happy for it's it's I have it specifically in my mayor's Office of Food Policy questions.
0:27:07
Okay.
0:27:07
But I'm happy to get feedback from both of you.
0:27:10
Sure.
Qiana Mickie
0:27:10
Yeah.
0:27:11
I'm happy to share.
0:27:13
Right now, we find that, urban for the office of, Urban Agriculture, we've heard from stakeholders that oftentimes, it's hard to gather, community driven data as well as connecting to it.
0:27:26
So we've been creating, an urban agriculture dashboard as well as as well as developing tools that will create opportunities to gather their information.
0:27:38
That means in particular, not just from individuals and stakeholders, but also finding a way to get aggregate data from nonprofits that do direct consumer work in their models around CSAs and creating SNAP.
0:27:52
So we feel like reaching out to governmental agencies, as well as our community stakeholders that have that information is a good way to collect, compile, and, aggregate that information to help inform the work of our office, as well as other offices.
0:28:08
But I'll let you I'll pass the mic to MOFP.
Rachel Atcheson
0:28:12
Okay.
0:28:12
Good.
