Healthy Start is a national scheme that provides help for eligible families and those who are pregnant to buy healthy food and milk.

Healthy Start includes a pre-paid card allocated £4.25 per week (£8.50 during the first year of a child’s life) to be spent on milk, fruit, and vegetables, infant formula, and access to Healthy Start vitamins. If a participant remains eligible from 10 weeks pregnant until their child is age 4, £1,200 could be accessed via the scheme.

However, since the transition to a digitalised scheme, uptake has reduced to just 65% across Liverpool with £758,521.24 going unclaimed in 2021.

Increasing awareness and uptake of the Healthy Start Scheme across Liverpool is crucial as it could make a significant difference to some of Liverpool’s lowest income households, improving the quality and quantity of good food their household consumes, which is especially important during pregnancy and early years development.

Become a Community Healthy Start Champion

Feeding Liverpool offer regular free introductory training to The Healthy Start Scheme, with trainees becoming Community Healthy Start Champions, able to promote the scheme in their communities.

This training is aimed at people in Liverpool who support pregnant women and parents/carers with young children aged 0–4 years, including:

• Voluntary sector volunteers or staff members – including organisations that support families through the Holidays Activities and Food Programme

• Children centre staff, health-care related workers, and wellbeing professionals

Join the 187 people who have already completed this training.

View our event page here to see when the next training will be taking place or watch our online training below.

 

For more information about The Healthy Start Scheme visit including Feeding Liverpool’s research ‘A Healthy Start for Liverpool’ click here