Online Webinar
Free
Target audience: School or Early Childhood Education professionals, including Farm to School Coordinators, Nutrition Program staff, School Nurses, Counselors, Administrators, or Farmers that work with students. Parents welcome as well.

Registration required. Register here by Thursday, 6/2 at the latest. Please note that this webinar will not be recorded, rather, we encourage registrants to attend this interactive presentation live.

Food is many things: a cornerstone of culture and family, a basic human need, a coping mechanism, an expense, and more. Because it plays such a weighted role in our lives, the topic of food, or the act of eating itself, can be an emotionally loaded one for many, especially those who have experienced trauma. Do you notice behavioral challenges spike during meal times, or worry that a local food activity might leave some students feeling left out? Do you notice some students avoid meal times all together, and wonder why, or how to help? Join co-facilitators Sheila Humphreys of Food Connects and Lauren Griswold of Vital Communities for a two-hour webinar on the connections between food and identity, narrative, shame, and empowerment. This free webinar aims to inform your Farm to School programming such that more students feel not only welcome within, but empowered by, their food-focused experiences at school.

Sheila Humphreys is Farm to School Coach at Food Connects. She is a former elementary school teacher who has been involved in the Farm to School movement in Vermont since 2007. She is passionate about supporting schools in adopting a trauma-informed approach to education. In addition to coaching schools in Windham County, Sheila offers workshops regionally and nationally on Trauma Sensitive Approaches to Farm to School and Trauma-Informed Cafeterias. Sheila developed this presentation for the Vermont Farm to School Network in 2021, and has facilitated it across the state a number of times since.

Lauren Griswold is the Interim Projects Coordinator at Vital Communities, overseeing the Upper Valley Farm to School Network and Upper Valley Everyone Eats. Lauren worked with Sheila this spring to bring this powerful presentation to our region and is excited to share it with you all on 6/2.