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Field Reports

Food, Freedom, and Choice: Balancing Nutrition and Independence in Group Homes

Hayleigh Rockenback, Emerson Fellow
Published 2022-2023

Quincy, Massachusetts

Approximately 8,000 individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities or acquired brain injuries live in long-term residential care facilities in Massachusetts. These settings are intended to provide comfort, freedom, and autonomy for adults with developmental disabilities as well as promote the transition to independent living. However, following Massachusetts Executive Order 509, the Department of Health created the State Agency Food Standards document that recommends and requires nine state agencies to purchase certain foods. However, the document created is not only outdated, but applied too broadly to a diverse range of settings and has unintended, uneven, and harmful consequences in group home settings. This paper lays out recommendations for how to address this issue and develop state policies that would better reflect the purpose of group homes and promote autonomy, choice, and independence in an essential aspect of community living and health: food.

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Publication tags: Field Reports - Health, Nutrition and Hunger

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Hayleigh Rockenback

Emerson Fellow

Hayleigh is a recent graduate of the University of Notre Dame where she majored in Sociology and minored in both public policy and Italian. During her time at Notre Dame, Hayleigh was a student affiliate at the Klau Center for Civil and Human Rights and a member of the Alpha Kappa Delta Sociology Honors Society. Her interest in sustainability and public policy also led her to write her senior capstone, a policy memo on water conservation in Arizona. Originally from Tucson, Arizona, Hayleigh’s passion for social justice stemmed from her culturally diverse upbringing and lived experience, leading her to a summer of service work in Camden, New Jersey. Her experience working at a nonprofit dedicated to environmental transformation through sustainability in food insecure neighborhoods, as well as her commitment to those suffering from drug and alcohol addiction ultimately became the catalyst for her dedication to breaking the cycle of injustice in the United States. Following the Bill Emerson National Hunger Fellowship, Hayleigh hopes to advocate for those on the margins and create meaningful change throughout the world.

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