Food provides comfort. The smell of a steaming bowl of golden chicken soup or Friday’s challah in the oven can be as warming as a hug.

The last 18 months have been particularly rough for many teens and young adults, so it’s no surprise that food and cooking have provided a source of stability for several groups who were struggling in mainstream education.

Each year, the Gateways programme at JW3 (which was founded in 2008) takes in small groups of young people aged between 15 and 25 who are struggling or have struggled to access education.

JW3 is equipped with a demonstration kitchen where teacher (and food writer) Judi Rose takes her novice chefs (in three terms) from barely being able to boil an egg (in some cases) to turning those eggs into soufflés and roulades. “They can do some quite sophisticated cooking — their own steak frites and Lahmacun (a Middle Eastern pizza) as well as making and styling their own hummus and smoothie bowls.”

She says her pupils visibly blossom even from the first lesson: “Mentally, they go from having low self-esteem and high anxiety to taking huge pride in what they can do.

“At the end of a session, I see them looking at what they have achieved, first with disbelief and then with pride. Their eyes gleam and you can see their posture change, and a little shiver goes through their spine with just a sense of ‘gosh I made that – maybe I’m not so useless after all’. It gives them a huge sense of reinforcement.”

Before entering the kitchen classroom, qualified teacher, Rose, underwent training in safeguarding and how to deal with issues her pupils may have.

“I’ve been trained in mental health awareness, which helps me to be mindful of how to handle disclosures my pupils may make to me, as well as how to work with children with autism and acute anxiety.”

Since the pandemic, the profiles of children being referred to the unit has changed completely. “My groups used to be mostly students with dyslexia or ADHD with perhaps one pupil who was refusing to go to school. Now most of my group are school refusers who are finding mainstream school too stressful. There has been an explosion in referrals to the course and I’m seeing a lot of anxiety and depression.”

She describes a pupil too anxious to even enter the kitchen. “She had to sit outside to start with, but after a glass of water, gathered up the courage to come in and then cooked her own gorgeous pizza. She was beaming from ear to ear — it was a complete transformation.”

According to programme director Laurence Field: “We help two main groups of young people — all struggling with mental health challenges.”

He explains that they include school age students (14 – 16) either in those struggling in mainstream education; or school refusers; or those who have been (or are on the verge of being) permanently excluded from school.

“That is primarily because of issues around anxiety or depression; or where they have been the victims of bereavement or of the fallout from divorce or medical issues, which has left them unable to exist in a big educational environment.”

The second group are young adults in their early 20’s, often from a religious background, who may have had little secular education and cannot read or write well. The cooking element is a fraction of what Gateways offers.

“We help them to get where they need to be, which may be by helping them get academic qualifications or vocational qualifications, like hairdressing; photography; business studies or cooking.”

The students can study and sit formal examinations in English and maths as well as studying for a range of qualifications, one of which is the Level 2 BTEC in cooking skills. The qualification is equivalent to half a GCSE.

Equipping the students to feed themselves has another benefit: “By cooking for themselves, they know what is going into the food and can make healthier choices, and avoid foods that can exacerbate anxiety, anxiety and depression, like food additives and sugary foods.”

Rose also teaches them the value of healthy eating: “We emphasise the healthy plate and the impact of what we eat on our mental health.” She explains that certain foods, like cheese, nuts, poultry, eggs and wholegrains contain melatonin and tryptophan as well as vitamin B3. “Those foods help your brain make serotonin, which is the feel good chemical. And they are even more effective when you have them with vitamin C.” So she has taught them dishes like the recipes on the facing page.

Even the process of being in the kitchen has proved calming. “When you cook — or learn any new skill — you have to be in the moment and totally focused. That means leaving your troubles behind.”

She says that achieving those skills gives the novice cooks a huge sense of accomplishment but there can also be emotional release in the kitchen work: “When we make a dough, I tell them to slap it hard on the table and make as much noise as they can when they are doing it — the noisier they are, the better it will be. It’s a great outlet in a safe space to relieve stress and frustration. They scrunch up their faces and I tell them to just get it out of their systems.”

After each session the students who want to, sit down to eat together. “Many of them have not experienced that at home” says Field who explains that says several of the cooking course alumni did work experience and then worked at Zest, the (now defunct) restaurant at JW3. Some went on to professional careers in food. “Two of them now run cafes in Israel” he says.

The programme has been such a success, it has a waiting list and Field is now seeking funding to set up a full-time, Ofsted-registered alternative provision. “Pupils currently have to go back to a mainstream setting when they are not with us and that has its own problems.”

More info here