This presentation will highlight the current state and future directions of school food programming in Canada.
Dr. Amberley T. Ruetz has been working nationally and internationally to advance school food and farm-to-school programming since 2015. Nationally, Amberley led the first systematic survey of school food programs in Canada, and co-Chairs the Canadian Association for Food Studies’ School Food Working Group. Internationally, Amberley is the key interlocutor on Canadian school food research to the Global Research Consortium for School Health and Nutrition, the research arm of the Global School Meal Coalition. Amberley’s work is informed by her time as a former practitioner in the Ontario Student Nutrition Program. As a community-engaged researcher, Amberley supports the work of several groups advancing school food in Canada. In 2019, Amberley was invited by the Federal Minister of Families, Children and Social Development to Canada's first roundtable consultation on developing a National School Food Program. Amberley continues to consult the government on school food in her new capacity as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Saskatchewan where she is now coordinating an evaluation of school food program implementation models in every province and territory with Dr. Rachel Engler-Stringer, academic partners across Canada, and the Coalition for Healthy School Food.