Classification: Emerging

Steps to Health’s PSE Toolkit: The Ingredients for a Welcoming Farmers Market

The Ingredients for a Welcoming Farmers Market Toolkit is a PSE change intervention that uses best practices to contribute to a more welcoming farmers market environment for all community members. The Toolkit outlines a 7-step process designed to assist with data collection, analysis, and action planning. The baseline assessment determines whether the market is implementing the healthy practice in question or if the market needs some improvement in that area. The resource guide helps staff better understand why questions are included in the assessment, and how the market can improve its practices related to each question. Using the Community Food Survey included in the Toolkit, staff collect responses from community members to better understand why individuals might not attend the farmer’s market or what foods they might be interested in buying at the market.  

Target Behavior: Food Insecurity/Food Assistance 

Intervention Type: PSE Change 

Cooking Matters for WIC Clinics (CM for WIC)

Cooking Matters for WIC Clinics (CM for WIC) is a direct education intervention designed to enhance the WIC client experience and to improve maternal and child diets and health through improved knowledge and self-efficacy for healthy eating on a budget, increased WIC voucher redemption (particularly the fruit and vegetable vouchers), and increased WIC client retention beyond the first year postpartum. CM for WIC includes nutrition education and hands-on cooking classes adapted from the Cooking Matters for Parents (CMP) curriculum to correspond with the time frame of other client classes offered at WIC clinics, Cooking Matters at the Store for WIC Parents (CMATS WIC) pop-up grocery store tours in clinics, and customized survey tools.

Target Behavior: Healthy Eating, Other: Food Resource Management  
Intervention Type: Direct Education 

Start Strong: Cooking, Feeding, and More

The Start Strong: Cooking, Feeding, and More is a direct education intervention for child care providers that promotes policy, systems, and environmental (PSE) change in child care settings.  The intervention is designed to help child care providers increase their knowledge and skills of providing healthy foods for children, increase their knowledge of Federal food programs (SNAP, WIC, CACFP, and School Meals), and increase their confidence in talking about Federal food programs with families who may be food insecure. Family child care providers participate in four culinary nutrition education trainings to increase the knowledge and skills needed to create a healthier food environment for young children at their child care businesses. Child care providers may care for children of low-income families, so in order to address potential food insecurity, each training includes information about a food resource such as SNAP, WIC, and School Meals. As a result of training, child care providers promote healthier eating at their child care businesses by making changes that result in providing healthier foods and a greater variety of vegetables at meal times. For successful implementation of PSE change, facilitated discussions are held as a space for child care providers to learn promising practices from each other.

Target Behavior: Healthy Eating

Intervention Type: Direct Education, PSE Change

FoodShare South Carolina

FoodShare South Carolina is a PSE change intervention designed to improve food security and health outcomes through fresh food access and affordability. Every 2 weeks residents can order a Fresh Food Box using cash or SNAP/EBT. The program is a SNAP Healthy Bucks site (a state SNAP healthy incentives program), which allows SNAP recipients to receive a $15 healthy incentive to go towards the cost of their box. Each Fresh Food Box contains 9-11 varieties of culturally appropriate fruits and vegetables, always with a mix of more common items (e.g., apples) and less common items (e.g., radishes). A recipe card that is culturally relevant to participants and based on the produce in the box in a given week is also included. The program is situated within an academic medical center and community-based hospital system. A screening and referral process was created that links patients to FoodShare sites across the state.

Target Behavior: Healthy Eating, Food Insecurity/Food Assistance

Intervention Type: PSE Change

FNV

The FNV Campaign is a social marketing and PSE change intervention that aims to present fruits and vegetables in a way that is both fun and cool, ultimately shifting attitudes, behavior and social norms relative to healthy eating. The objectives of the FNV Campaign are to create positive attitudes toward fruits and vegetables and to drive increased consumption of fruits and vegetables in targeted communities amongst SNAP eligible audiences. Targeted at millennials, the FNV campaign uses humor and the power of local and/or national celebrity to voluntarily shift consumer behavior toward healthier dietary choices. The campaign’s recommended approach includes surround sound marketing through billboards, retail, and transit media placements and in advertising buys on social and digital media, but it can be customized and tailored based on individual campaign needs.

Target Behavior: Healthy Eating

Intervention Type: Social Marketing, PSE Change

Healthy Apple Program

The Healthy Apple Program is a PSE Change tool designed to improve the nutrition, physical activity practices, and environment of child care facilities. The program recognizes achievements by issuing awards to child care providers who make improvements and reach their goals.

Target Behavior: Breastfeeding, Healthy Eating, Physical Activity

Intervention Type: PSE Change

EatFresh

EatFresh.org is mobile-friendly website that was created for the SNAP-Ed population and the organizations that serve them. It provides practical resources and encouragement for individuals with varying levels of digital literacy, internet access, health awareness and culinary skills. EatFresh.org is a stand-alone indirect education resource, an extender for direct education interventions, and a useful tool for a variety of PSE strategies. Partners throughout California use EatFresh.org as a tool to direct their participants to healthy recipes during nutrition workshops, to look up preparation and storage tips for food received at food banks, and to apply for SNAP/Calfresh.  They promote the website by distributing recipe cards at health fairs and other indirect events and refer clients to the EatFresh.org Mini Course as a flexible direct education resource. The EatFresh.org Mini Course is a free online direct education course that features 15 SNAP-Ed self-paced topics that can be completed in any order. 

Target Behavior: Healthy Eating

Intervention Type: Direct Education, PSE Change

Empower Program

The Empower Program is a PSE Change intervention developed by the Arizona Department of Health Services to support the efforts of licensed early care and education (ECE) facilities and certified family child care (FCC) homes to empower young children to grow up healthy. Arizona’s Empower Program for ECE facilities began in 2010 as a two-pronged incentive approach that reduced licensing fees and promoted healthy habits in early care and education settings where young children were highly impressionable. Although participation in Empower is voluntary for ADHS-licensed child care centers and small group homes, more than 99% of licensed programs participate. Empower is currently voluntary for ADHS licensed facilities and required for Arizona Department of Economic Security child care contracts as well as Arizona’s First Things First Quality First program.

Participating facilities pledge to adopt 10 standards that encourage healthy eating, active play, and other health habits.  Requirements include having a written policy and implementing each of the 10 standards.

Target Behavior: Breastfeeding, Healthy Eating, Physical Activity

Intervention Type: PSE Change

CHOICE: Creating Healthy Opportunities In Child Care Environments

The CHOICE intervention provides tools to assess and develop nutrition and physical activity policies in child care settings. The CHOICE team developed the Self-Assessment Questionnaire (SAQ) and the Best Practices Manual to help childcare centers develop comprehensive written nutrition and physical activity policies. The SAQ is a list of 35 best practices for childcare nutrition and physical activity environments. The four sections of the SAQ address nutrition, child feeding practices, foods served, physical activity, and staff and parent training.

Target Behavior: Breastfeeding, Healthy Eating, Physical Activity

Intervention Type: PSE Change

Eat Smart in Parks (ESIP)

Eat Smart in Parks (ESIP) is a PSE change and social marketing intervention designed to promote healthier eating in Missouri’s state and local parks. The effort includes the development of a model ESIP policy that guides parks in serving healthier options, training for state and local parks to assist them with using the guidelines, and materials to promote healthier items.

Target Behavior: Healthy Eating

Intervention Type: PSE Change, Social Marketing