A pioneering free school breakfast program, KickStart for Kids, run largely by volunteers with corporate sponsors and donations is facing problems due to its success in South Australia.
A Flinders University study reveals challenges for the rapidly growing program, including a limit to its expansion and reach – particularly in regional and remote schools – and the need for additional support in the primary and high schools involved.
The previous qualitative study of KickStart for Kids volunteers, donors and board members of schools across the northern, western and southern suburbs of Adelaide highlighted several challenges to the continued sustainability of the program.
“While the KickStart for Kids program continues to grow, to more than 50,000 breakfasts a week in 360 SA schools, there are challenges for growth, school engagement, and finding enough donated food for children most in need,” says Flinders University Caring Futures Institute researcher Michelle Watson.
“The founder (Ian Steel), volunteers and donors do a wonderful job, delivering many benefits to children who come to school without breakfast.
“But they have limits, as do the school coordinators who already have a lot of other duties to perform every day.”
KickStart for Kids founder Ian Steel says the program is now catering for needy children in eight new schools in city and country areas this school term – “adding pressure to our whole supply chain”.
“It’s always tough finding enough products to service our breakfast programs and there are constant shortages of bread, fruit and spreads,” Mr Steel says, adding current demands could escalate after the COVID-19 school closures.
“We are also in need of more volunteers, including volunteer drivers to run our four delivery vans throughout the week.”
Flinders PhD researcher Ms Watson, whose research focuses on food insecurity, says Australia ranks in the bottom third for the level of childhood food insecurity in OECD countries.
“Depending on the measurement tool used, the prevalence of food insecurity in Australia varies from 4% to 36% of the (total) population,” the paper says.
The evaluation paper, ‘Perspectives of the key stakeholders of the KickStart for Kids school breakfast program‘ (2020) by M Watson, S Velardo and M Drummond – College of Nursing and Health Sciences, and the Health, Activity, Performance and Exercise (SHAPE) Research Centre at Flinders University – has been published in Children and Youth Services Review (Elsevier) Vol 112, 104895 DOI: 10.1016/j.childyouth.2020.104895