Inverness culinary school links with Highland mental health charity Mikeysline for new 'social prescription' project
Register for free to read more of the latest local news. It's easy and will only take a moment.
The initiative will encourage attendees to build confidence in the kitchen from the comfort of their own home.
Michaels Culinary School, in Inverness, will be working in collaboration with Mikeysline on the new idea.
The school has been in talks with a local GP to be a contributor for so-called social prescription, referring patients to the social enterprise to learn new skills, engage in the community, and pursue a healthy lifestyle using the replicable and affordable recipes produced and taught by chef Connor Rae.
Online workshops with Michael’s Culinary School will cover several classic dishes and encourage attendees to build confidence in the kitchen from the comfort of their own home.
The workshop collaboration started yesterday – World Mental Health Day – and a number of places on the workshop were reserved for the benefit of Mikeysline volunteers and service users.
Mikeysline has recently welcomed consultant nutritional scientist and visiting contributor Kerstin Eickhoff-Piechaczek from Germany.
Kerstin will be attending some of the workshops with Connor to facilitate friendly and informative conversations about the relationships between food and mental health.
Katie Melville, fundraising manager for Mikeysline, said: “We were delighted to be approached by Michaels Culinary School to benefit from their online workshop programme. Their vision as a social enterprise to encourage people in our community to learn new skills and prepare fresh, healthy and affordable meals for themselves is appropriately timed as the cost of living continues to affect all of us.
“By being able to signpost our service users to Michaels Culinary School we can encourage people meet and talk to others, learn something new, and prepare a fresh healthy meal.”
Michael Fallows, CEO of Michaels Culinary School, said: “Michaels Culinary School was set up with the help and support of my grandad who sadly took his own life in January 2022 due to poor mental health.
“I want to use this opportunity with Mikeysline to make sure that they can continue the work and support that they provide to the local community, and to make sure that people know its OK not to be OK.”
