Joanna Lacey

What are you doing now?

Since graduating from Northumbria University I have enjoyed an incredible career in a community public health role directly related to the degree I completed. I secured a job with East End Health in 2010 - which became the social enterprise Food Nation. With Food Nation I was able to pass on food, nutrition and cooking skills to people from every background and ages between 2 and 92 years old. This experience with Food Nation saw me going from Project Assistant to Director of the company and I found a love for sharing skills and knowledge with children and seeing them enjoy the process of cooking and creating their own meals.

That role was the starting point to my career where I have developed, managed and delivered food education projects across Newcastle upon Tyne, became a trained community cookery school trainer and expanded my food education experience through working with people of every age range, background and ability and in 2020 started to work directly with the Jamie Oliver Company to train other voluntary sector workers across the country to teach cooking skills in their communities

In 2021 I took the opportunity to set up my own social enterprise, Nourish Food School, which is my proudest moment in my career to date. Nourish works across the North East delivering food education in the way I know best - through hands-on, practical community cookery courses. By building this company, we are seeing almost 1000 people every year take part in cooking skills workshops and developing their understanding of good, sustainable and nutritious meals and we are truly meeting the needs of those who are facing the biggest barriers to eating well for their physical and emotional wellbeing.

How did Northumbria benefit your career?

My degree was an essential requirement for the position I have at the minute, and I have found that I have used knowledge from every aspect of the Food and Nutrition course (even the Risk Assessment module!) 

Completing my degree at Northumbria was the starting point to realising a career path that I wasn't necessarily planning on at the start. I was introduced through the university to the organisation that became my first employer post graduation.

Throughout my career, keeping in touch with the university and their staff has helped me to develop the projects and businesses I have been a part of - whether that be supporting us to offer placement year jobs to current undergraduates or linking me into the university network where I have been able to give lectures and presentations about the important of social enterprises within the voluntary sector. And very importantly, being alumni of Northumbria has allowed me to access this newest opportunity of becoming a HAF Plus Ambassador.

Why did you chose to become a Northumbria Holiday Activities and Food Programme (HAF Plus) Ambassador

Every year my company is involved in the delivery of HAF activity and it has been evident that the traditional HAF model is not able to provide a service for the older children that meets their needs as independent young people.

The launch of the HAF Plus programme is something I wholeheartedly agree with as I believe that young people should feel empowered and have access to opportunities that give them independence and freedom to explore the opportunities that are right on their doorstep in the places they live.

I chose to be a HAF Plus Ambassador because of this reason and to ensure I can be an advocate for this type of work. I'm excited to support the programme and wherever possible support the goal for young people to experience the places, activities and good food options that are available to them. There are lots of great choices in our communities that this programme can shine a light on which in turn has the potential to create happy and healthy communities for many years to come!