Engaging Community Partners to Promote Healthy Behaviours in Young Children

Abstract

Objective: To evaluate the implementation of a health promotion initiative that encourages healthy eating and physical activity in young children. Participants: The program targets children aged three to eight years of age who attend preschool programs and primary school. Potential program facilitators include public health nurses, staff and volunteers with family resource centres, childcare centres, and preschool/afterschool programs. Setting: Communities within the Western Regional Health Authority in western Newfoundland. Intervention: “Children Aiming to Choose Health” (CATCH) is a resource kit that was developed for use in various community settings. The kit contains activities and resources that promote healthy behaviours. Workshops educated approximately 100 individuals on how to use the resource kit in their centre or school. Forty-five resource kits were disseminated at the workshops which were then used over the next few months. A two-stage evaluation was conducted: 1) workshop feedback and 2) follow-up surveys and focus groups. Outcomes: Overall, 99% of workshop participants were satisfied with the workshop and felt prepared to use the kit. The follow-up survey and three focus groups identified strengths, challenges and suggestions for improvement. Strengths indicated the tool was a valuable resource, was user-friendly and provided a variety of health promotion activities. Challenges included the need for better access to kits and time constraints. A few suggestions for improvements were to include more information to send home to parents and develop activities on reducing screen time. Conclusion: The evaluation demonstrated that the CATCH resource kit could be an effective health promotion resource for community partners to convey healthy messages to young children. Key words: Health promotion; childhood obesity; healthy eating; active living; evaluation