Brain injury survivors taught to cook by charity

Headway Plymouth has teamed up with not-for-profit community interest company Food is Fun

A Devon charity that supports people with acquired brain injuries is using cooking as a way to help clients with their recovery.

Headway Plymouth has teamed up with not-for-profit community interest company Food is Fun to teach cooking skills.

The charity said there were about 80,000 brain injury survivors living in Devon.

Headway Plymouth's chief executive Craig Butler said food was important for brain growth and development.

'We're all different'

Mr Butler said: "For people who are perhaps the most profoundly impaired, food is an explosion of colour and taste and texture that is relearnt.

"For others it is impairment of their fine dexterity skills and learning to hold equipment, carry things around the kitchen and use potentially sharp knives again can be quite risky.

"People with a frontal lobe brain injury have impairment with something called sequencing, which means they may not understand the order in which to prepare a meal, so this sort of exercise with our clients and their families helps them to relearn core skills around food preparation."

James Hopkin has been supported by the charity after being involved in an accident while working as a roofer.

Mr Hopkin said learning new skills like cooking had been a helpful part of his recovery.

"It means a massive part of my life, being here today because I am with people who have severe brain injuries but in different ways... nearly everyone in this room has had a brain injury and we're all different."

Dave Ackrell suffered a brain injury following a motorbike accident

Dave Ackrell, who suffered a brain injury following a motorbike accident about 18 months ago, said the initiative was "brilliant".

"I've not really laughed since I had my accident but here I just listen to people talking and you hear someone giggling and it just brings you up, it's great, I love it here," he added.

Most of the food prepared at the sessions is supplied by the surplus food distributor Fareshare, with cooking sessions organised by Food is Fun.

Food is Fun founder Tami Skelton said preparing and eating food together was "therapy in itself".

"Food brings people together," she said.

"When people are sat around the table, the conversations they are having, it just gives them time to be them, to be able to share and forget what's happened in the past and all their difficulties and to be happy together."