Mini Professional Development 2: How to use FoodChecker in long day care

Jodie McGough: All right, I’d like to begin by acknowledging the Traditional Custodians of the land on which we are meeting. Today I’m presenting on the lands of the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung and Bunurong people of the Kulin Nation. I pay my respects to their Elders past and present, and to any Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples here today. We also welcome and encourage you to share the Country you are joining from by adding it to your name in Teams or sharing it in the chat.

A quick reminder of who the Healthy Eating Advisory Service (HEAS) is, and the types of support we provide. HEAS offers free support to organisations to provide and promote healthier food and drinks. The Healthy Eating Advisory Service is delivered by Nutrition Australia – Victorian Division, with support from the Victorian Government.

In early childhood settings, HEAS supports long day care, kindergarten, family day care, and outside school hours care to promote and provide nutritious food and drinks that support children’s growth and development.

HEAS has a wide range of resources available for early childhood services, including the Menu Planning Guidelines for Long Day Care, information on managing allergies and intolerances, online training modules, and a variety of recipes to suit many dietary needs.

FoodChecker, the focus of today’s session, is an online tool that allows users to assess individual foods, drinks, and menus against relevant government guidelines. In the long day care setting, FoodChecker helps plan and assess menus according to the Victorian Government’s Menu Planning Guidelines. This supports services in meeting the healthy food and drink requirements under the National Quality Framework.

This session follows on from the launch of Cooks Connect, where we introduced the Cooks Connect Toolkit. This toolkit provides step-by-step guidance and all the resources a health promoter needs to establish a successful Cooks Network. The aim of a Cooks Network is to provide opportunities for cooks to come together, build a collaborative community, and share their knowledge and experiences.

Just a quick reminder—if you’ve just joined us, please pop yourself on mute so we can continue smoothly.

These mini professional development (PD) sessions have been co-designed with health promoters, covering popular topics to help you become subject matter experts. Available on the HEAS website, you can find the first mini PD session on menu planning guidelines, and after today, you’ll also have access to this session on using FoodChecker in long day care.

We’re now going to walk through this second mini PD session, developed for use in your Cooks Network, which focuses on how to use FoodChecker in long day care.

Depending on how many cooks register to attend your network, you may be able to facilitate the session on your own, or involve another health promoter in your organisation. Some existing networks have also had a paediatric dietitian co-facilitate, where appropriate.

The aim of Mini PD Session 2 is to increase long day care cooks’ understanding and confidence in using FoodChecker to complete their menu assessment. The session also aims to help cooks become familiar with the FoodChecker menu assessment report, and to understand how to implement changes recommended in that report.

We’ll walk you through the resources included in this package: a lesson plan, supporting video content, activity sheets, HEAS resources, example discussion questions, ideas for collecting feedback, and a certificate of attendance for participating cooks.

Everything you need to run this mini PD session is found in the lesson plan. If you’ve already accessed our resources from the first session, you’ll be familiar with the structure. I’ll now share my screen to show where to find the mini PD sessions and lesson plans on the HEAS website.

From the homepage, click on “I’m working in Early Childhood Services”, then scroll down to “Health Promoter Resources”. There, you’ll find all the information about Cooks Connect. Click on “Find out more”, and as you scroll further, you’ll see the resources for the first session on menu planning and for today’s session—Mini PD 2 on FoodChecker.

Opening the lesson plan, you’ll see it links to all the materials you’ll need: background reading, instructional videos, guided activities, and worksheets. The session can be delivered in person or online.

The goal is to build cooks’ understanding, skills, and confidence in using FoodChecker, becoming familiar with the report, and understanding how to implement changes based on that report.

The lesson plan provides a suggested structure with topic outlines, activities, and estimated time allocations. It also lists the materials required, including activity sheets, answer sheets, and relevant HEAS resources.

The first part of the session introduces FoodChecker—why it’s used and what information is needed to complete a long day care menu assessment. A pre-recorded instructional video is available to play for cooks. This video gives an overview of how FoodChecker works, what’s required before starting an assessment, and what questions will be asked.

The video also introduces the Pre-FoodChecker Checklist. This resource helps cooks gather the information they need in advance, making the process smoother. After the video, cooks complete Activity 1—filling in the checklist, which is downloadable from the HEAS website and also linked in the lesson plan.

Questions on the checklist include daily attendance, ingredient details (e.g., if bread is wholemeal, if stock is salt-reduced), and quantities used in recipes. If cooks are unsure about quantities, HEAS offers an Ingredient Quantity Guide, also used in Session 1.

The checklist also includes questions about infants under 12 months, allergy management, and whether the menu meets cultural and social needs.

An answer sheet is available for health promoters to assist cooks during this activity. For example, one question is whether expressed breast milk or infant formula is the main drink for children under 12 months. If “no” is selected during the assessment, the FoodChecker report will advise that it should be the main drink to meet nutritional needs.

After completing Activity 1, move on to Part 2. This follows a similar format and begins with another instructional video, which walks through completing a FoodChecker assessment for long day care—starting an assessment, entering food and drink items, navigating the tool, and accessing saved assessments or reports.

This video is longer, as there is more detail to cover. You might like to pause it occasionally to allow for discussion or to answer any questions.

To access FoodChecker, go to the HEAS website and click the “FoodChecker” button in the top right corner. You’ll need to register or sign in. It’s important to select your correct state (Victoria) and setting (long day care).

A recent change to FoodChecker is that one-day assessments are no longer available as of 1 June. Only weekly menu assessments are now supported. Existing one-day assessments can still be viewed but not edited or copied.

An exciting upcoming feature is live feedback during assessments for long day care, similar to what’s already available for schools and health services. If you’re interested in testing this feature, we welcome your feedback.

There is no formal activity following the second video, but the lesson plan provides guided discussion questions to check in with cooks and ensure they feel confident using FoodChecker.

The final part of the session covers the FoodChecker report. Another video explains how to navigate the report, how to identify if the menu meets the guidelines, and how to implement feedback to improve the menu.

If the menu does not meet the guidelines, the report will indicate where improvements are needed. For example, a bar chart may show the number of serves required (dark green) vs. what the menu provides (light green). One activity asks cooks to interpret this chart and identify where the menu falls short—such as needing an extra half-serve of fruit per child per day.

Cooks are also asked to suggest ways to increase fruit serves. Example answers are provided in the health promoter answer sheet.

You may then wish to finish your session with a Q&A. We’ve provided suggested questions, but feel free to customise based on your cooks’ needs. Feedback from existing networks shows that cooks really value this opportunity to share ideas and collaborate.

To wrap up the session, we encourage you to provide cooks with useful resources to support menu planning:

• Instructions for assessing a long day care menu on FoodChecker

• Getting Started with the Menu Planning Guidelines

• Full and checklist versions of the Menu Planning Guidelines

• Ingredient Quantity Guides for long day care

All of these are available on the HEAS website and are linked in the lesson plan.

We also recommend collecting feedback at the end of your session. This helps evaluate whether the session met cooks’ needs and may support internal reporting. You can use sample survey questions developed by HEAS, or design your own using platforms like SurveyMonkey, Microsoft Forms, or printed forms.

Lastly, HEAS has created editable certificates of completion to recognise the cooks’ participation in professional development. These can be personalised with your organisation’s logo, the cook’s name, and date of session. We encourage you to distribute them and have cooks display them proudly in their services.

That concludes our presentation on how to use FoodChecker in long day care.