Future of Food seminar: Professor Greta Defeyter
Youth voice: Use of creative methods to engage children and young people in co-designing school food policies and practice
Professor Greta Defeyter, Northumbria University
Date: Thursday 12 November, 16:00, Oxford Martin School or online
Abstract: Design for policy discourse is often focused on how design supports policy making in central government. And yet, there are other design practices that are contributing to policy development. We frame our work as designing for policy, design work that is happening outside formal policy space, aimed at impacting policy. The first study presents learnings based on a series of co-design interventions, with young people, in four English local authorities to a) design age-appropriate Holiday Activities and Food (HAF) programmes and b) impact national policy. The second study focusses on co-designing the school meal service in a large, secondary school located in an area of high deprivation in the North East of England. This study reports on some tensions between actors in co-designing a sustainable school food offer and provides insights into wider, non-food factors that need to be considered. In expanding what might be considered 'design for policy and practice', we hope to draw attention to considerations required when trying to influence policy and practice through the designing of public services. We adopt an infrastructuring approach that utilises creative methods to help us learn about and influence policy whilst also delivering value at local and national levels.
About Greta: Professor Greta Defeyter is the Dean of Social Mobility and Policy Engagement and the Director of the 'Healthy Living' Lab at Northumbria University. She has published numerous scientific and policy papers on children and young people's wellbeing, food insecurity, school meals, school breakfast clubs, affordable food clubs, the Holiday Activities and Food (HAF) programme, and has led numerous co-design projects with the UK Government to ensure that young people's voices are not only heard but acted upon in terms of policy and practice. In 2017 she led the co-design of the £200 million p.a. HAF programme that operates across all higher tier local authorities in England, and the subsequent HAF Plus programme (2022), and in 2025, she led the co-design of England's School Breakfast Club Programme. She was elected as a Fellow to the British Psychological Society (2019) and in 2026 she became a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences. In 2025 she became President of the RSM Food and Health Section and was named an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in recognition of her services to Education. In 2026, she was appointed as Chair of Feeding Britain, and a trustee for the British Nutrition Foundation. She has received numerous awards outside academia, including a Children's Food Hero from Sustain, a top 100 Change Maker from the Big Issue, and Women of the Year (2026). She is currently co-I on a DfE funded, national evaluation of the UK Government's free breakfast club scheme, a DfE funded national evaluation of the HAF programme, and an NIHR funded evaluation of the free fruit and vegetable scheme in all English primary schools.