Between April 5th and 28th, and again from May 9th through the 22nd, Children’s Home Society & Family Services sponsored two more sessions of Nutritionist Training programs for Social Welfare Institutes; both were held in Nanjing and organized by the CCAA. 104 participants from 98 welfare organizations in 30 provinces attended the two-week training. They followed in the footsteps of nutritionists from welfare organizations that received the very first national merit certificate in May of 2006 and were awarded national mid-level professional certification.

This training is in compliance with professional mid-level requirements, standardized professional teaching manuals and includes nationally known nutritionists from across China as instructors. In order to highlight and compare children’s nutritional programs at outstanding welfare institutes, experts from the Labor and Social Security departments approached this issue by compiling teaching manuals with assigned topics.It expanded the ratio between the assessment and testing of the nutritional information, it also helped make the training session more straightforward and practical, which was much welcomed by the students as

they were better equipped with basic nutritional knowledge and technical skills. Most felt deeply the importance of nutrition in a child’s growth. Xu Pei Ying from Zhejiang Jiaxing Social Welfare Institute and Chen De Ming from Hainan Sanya Social Welfare Institute both pointed out that through this training they realized that gourmet food and good food do not always equal balanced and nutritious meals. Zhan Lei Lei from Hebei Chengde Welfare Institute worked in the cafeteria for many years and he was shocked to find out how little he knew about nutritional value.He considered himself an experienced chef, but it was through the training that he learned what he’s been doing wrong. Wu Wen Qing from Quangdong and Fei Chun Lan from Hunan stated that the old concept of preparing food according to what the child wants has to be changed.The science of nutritionally well balanced and proportionate meals is the basic requirement for the children’s diet.

All students expressed their desire to apply the knowledge and skills they acquired from this training to their work.Presently, there are now 154 nationally certified nutritionists working in welfare institutes.

CCAA’s Assistant Director, Chu Xiao Ying, attended the graduation ceremony of the first training session.She encouraged students to firmly establish the idea of perpetual learning in order to strengthen their aptitude in their undertakings, to establish the habit of applying what they learn, to focus on achievement, and more importantly to emphasize the meaning of responsibility by firmly establishing the mission of “everything for the children.”