HealthStart’s activities are centered around evidence-based approaches to best deliver health education to young children. The core theory of change the organization utilizes is family-based behavior change interventions. One of their activities, the CHEWS workshop, teaches children healthy activities, snacks to make at home with their families, and how food interacts with different systems in the body. The purpose of this is to improve the children’s understanding about why they should engage in these activities, with the intent to establish connections early for permanent lifestyle changes. This is supported by evidence from Bakken et al, who concluded that, children who engage in educational programs at a young age, are more likely to have longer lasting impacts from those lessons (2017). According to the annual 2020 impact report the foundation found that their program improved the knowledge of children regarding health and how it interplays with their bodies. Another goal of these workshops is to use children as tools to stimulate change in their parents. Parents are encouraged to attend the workshops and engage in some of the activities with their children. They are also indirectly encouraged to buy and eat healthier foods, due to their children requesting it after attending workshops. A review conducted by Gemma Enright states, “These characteristics were associated with positive dietary and physical activity behavior change in children and may be useful considerations for the design and implementation of future theory-based treatment interventions to encourage habitual healthy diet and physical activity to reduce childhood obesity.” (2020). In their 2020 report, it was reported that the students were improving their knowledge, and in turn sharing this information with their parents.
Some additional data that would help support the organization would be information regarding the communities’ opinions about health. These data points can be collected using community surveys distributed through in person contact points or the internet. Data points like these would help the organization gain a better understanding of the community, their opinions on available health services, and perceived barriers and biases the community may have. This would help create a more tailored service, and better address the issues that affect the specific population. An example of a potential barrier that is expressed by the community could be the cost of healthy food, with this information the foundation would be able to create low-cost healthy snacks and express this low cost to the parents. This could also help the organization identify the community assets, key leaders, and determine if the community believes there is an issue. This will help the organization ensure the longevity of their workshops and programs in the community as well. Not only that, but this type of information and data sets would provide good evidence and support when negotiating the implementation of their programs in schools and with possible partner sites. They can successfully demonstrate the want for these types of programs, and this will help encourage the sites to make an informed decision that would benefit both the site and HealthStart foundation. This also ensures the foundation does not implement their programs in a location that would not be successful, due to a lack of interest. During the creation of the surveys during the internship and the surveys were piolet tested with a small group of participants. The early results were surprising, and lead to the addition to more questions, and request for more elaboration on specific answers. The question regarding time available to devote to health education was of increasing interest to the organization because the answers given varied so greatly.