Founded in 2019 by a trained chef, Fresh Beginnings offers hands-on training where participants learn to cook meals from scratch while developing practical kitchen skills that support greater independence.

With funding from the Community Foundation for Merseyside, Fresh Beginnings delivered a programme of inclusive cookery sessions throughout 2024, supporting both adults with learning disabilities and families of children with disabilities and additional educational needs.

Working in partnership with Cavendish Academy, they delivered two five-week family cookery courses where 4–5 families cooked together in each session, starting with simple, confidence-building recipes such as homemade soup and bread rolls, before designing their own menus for the remaining weeks.

Later in the year, 14 adults took part in a ten-week series of two-hour sessions, preparing a main meal and dessert each week, rotating roles to develop a wide range of culinary skills, and sitting down together to enjoy the food they had made, often taking leftovers home.

These sessions not only encouraged participants to try new dishes, from soups and breads to curries, pies and baked desserts, but also strengthened confidence, social connection and independent living skills.

Families similarly took home the meals they prepared, enabling them to share food, encourage wider family involvement in cooking, and inspire a love of home-cooked food.

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