Evaluation Indicators: Individual: Medium Term

Stanford Youth Diabetes Coaching Program

The Stanford Youth Diabetes Coaches Program (SYDCP) facilitates partnerships between medical training programs and high schools serving youth from socioeconomically disadvantaged and underrepresented minority communities. The SYDCP is a “train the trainer program” in which medical residents (and other health professional trainees) train high school students to coach family members with diabetes or other chronic illnesses. The program consists of 8 tightly scripted, interactive PowerPoint based lessons that incorporate evidence-based approaches to chronic disease management, highlighting healthy eating and physical activity. The curriculum is based on Kate Lorig’s Adult Chronic Disease Self-Management Model, Social Cognitive Theory, and peer health coaching, and is designed to address the burden of chronic disease in underserved communities by focusing on health knowledge, communication skills, goal setting, problem solving, and healthy behaviors. 

Please Note: Medical nutrition therapy is not allowable for SNAP-Ed. We strongly recommend you partner with a healthcare professional to provide those components of this intervention. Components focused on healthy eating and physical activity are appropriate for SNAP-Ed. 

Target Behavior: Healthy Eating, Physical Activity and Reduced Screen Time 

Intervention Type: Direct Education

Chronic Disease Self-Management Program

The Chronic Disease Self-Management Program (CDSMP) is a direct education intervention that helps individuals and caregivers of those with chronic health conditions build a “toolbox” of strategies they can utilize to help achieve their health goals. Workshops are for adults and are highly participatory and build mutual support. Workshop topics include techniques to deal with symptoms of chronic conditions, such as fatigue, pain, sleeplessness, shortness of breath, stress, and emotional problems, such as depression, anger, fear, and frustration. Participants will learn appropriate exercise for maintaining and improving strength and endurance, falls prevention, healthy eating, better breathing techniques, appropriate use of medication, working more effectively with health care providers, communication skills, action planning, problem solving, and decision making. Through actively achieving small goals, participants obtain success which builds confidence in their ability to manage their health and maintain active, fulfilling lives. 

Please Note: Medical nutrition therapy is not allowable for SNAP-Ed. We strongly recommend you partner with a healthcare professional to provide those components of this intervention. Components focused on healthy eating and physical activity are appropriate for SNAP-Ed. 

Target Behavior: Healthy Eating, Physical Activity and Reduced Screen Time 

Intervention Type: Direct Education 

Turtle Island Tales Family Wellness Program

The Turtle Island Tales family wellness program is a home-based, family-level, direct education intervention designed to increase fruit and vegetable consumption, decrease added sugar intake, increase physical activity, decrease sedentary/screen time, promote healthy sleep, and promote emotional regulation, providing low-income, SNAP-eligible American Indian (AI) families with skills and tools needed to make healthy lifestyle choices. The year-long 12 lesson program is designed to be mailed into the home monthly as a kit focused on a particular topic each month. Each kit contains themed printed lessons for adults, a children’s book on the topic, support items, and multiple activities for adults and children (3-8 years). Each lesson is designed for use in the home by families for approximately 1-2 hours each month; additional games and recipes in the kit and online encourage engagement throughout the month. The program is reinforced by social media (Instagram/Facebook) and a website that contains healthy recipes, active games, tips for wellness, and short character-based films, and complements and reinforces existing policy, systems, and environmental change interventions in Native communities, such as community gardens, traditional activities, and tribal wellness programs. 

Target Behavior: Healthy Eating, Physical Activity and Reduced Screen Time, Other: Sleep, emotional regulation 

Intervention Type: Direct Education 

StrongPeople™ Strong Hearts

StrongPeople™ Strong Hearts (SPSH) is a cardiovascular disease risk reduction program for midlife and older adults designed to improve diet and physical activity behaviors, assess local food and physical environment resources, and shift social norms about active living and healthy eating. The program consists of experiential one-hour group classes twice weekly for six months (48 classes) addressing multiple levels of the socioecological model (individual, social, and environmental levels). Class activities include aerobic exercise; strength training; instruction, discussion, and activities related to nutrition, physical activity, stress, and social support; and civic engagement activities to increase awareness and knowledge of aspects of the local food and physical environment that make healthy living easier or more difficult.  

Target Behavior: Healthy Eating, Physical Activity and Reduced Screen Time 

Intervention Type: Direct Education 

A Taste of African Heritage

A Taste of African Heritage (ATOAH) is a direct education cooking and nutrition curriculum designed to increase consumption of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, beans, and spices and reduce salt; improve cooking skills and nutritional literacy; reduce diet-related health disparities in the African American community using heritage as a motivator for health; and reframe nutrition and culinary education in a way that is culturally relevant to participants and honors African American’s culture, traditions, and contributions. African Americans are too often told that the foods they grew up eating are unhealthy and that poor health is a part of their heritage. A Taste of African Heritage (ATOAH) flips the script by celebrating the culinary legacy and often-unsung cultural ownership of healthy eating for people of African descent. Consisting of six 2-hour sessions which feature healthy foods (like leafy greens, whole grains, and beans) from across the African diaspora, the accessible six-session format can be easily scaled into existing community health infrastructure, yet it is immersive enough to produce meaningful results. 

Please Note: If using this curriculum with SNAP-Ed audiences, MyPlate must also be introduced and discussed along with the curriculum.

Target Behavior: Healthy Eating 

Intervention Type: Direct Education

Common Threads: Cooking Skills and World Cuisine Program

Cooking Skills and World Cuisine (CSWC) is a direct education intervention targeting elementary and middle school aged children designed to increase nutrition knowledge, culinary skills, liking of vegetables, vegetable consumption, and communication about healthy eating between students and families. Each lesson explores a different country’s cuisine and teaches young chefs how to follow a recipe, prepare and cook ingredients, and leave the kitchen as clean as they found it. Students that have completed the Cooking Skills and World Cuisine program are able to cook a balanced healthy meal that includes whole grains, lean protein, fruits, and vegetables. 

Target Behavior: Healthy Eating 

Intervention Type: Direct Education 

PowerUp Your School

PowerUp Your School (PowerUp) is an evidence-based physical activity program aligned with academic standards and social-emotional learning skills. As a direct education program, PowerUp helps youth meet national physical activity guidelines by engaging K-8th grade participants in 30 minutes of physical activity, a minimum of two times per week, in before and after school settings. Every PowerUp lesson is aligned with national Math and English Language Arts academic standards to engage students in active learning. Designed to minimize barriers to physical activity, PowerUp does not require any equipment and can be successfully implemented in a variety of spaces including gymnasiums, cafeterias, classrooms, hallways, common spaces, or outdoors. 

Target Behavior: Physical Activity and Reduced Screen Time 

Intervention Type: Direct Education

Growing Healthy Kids: Garden-Enhanced Nutrition Curriculum

Growing Healthy Kids (GHK) is a garden-themed, direct education curriculum aimed to integrate nutrition education with gardening to promote healthy eating and healthy choices among children, best aligned for students in 2nd and 3rd grade. GHK teaches nutrition education concepts closely aligned with MyPlate messages suitable for a SNAP-Ed audience and includes seven lessons with options for an outdoor, indoor, or hybrid (combination of activities from both mural and indoor gardens) garden, giving students opportunities to learn basic plant parts and try a variety of fruits and vegetables. Along with core journaling and gardening activities, lessons include food tasting activities, recipe printouts, physical activity options, coloring sheets, and suggestions for supplemental storybooks to go with lesson themes. Many connections to the Food Hero social marketing campaign exist within the curriculum. 

Target Behavior: Healthy Eating 

Intervention Type: Direct Education 

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 

Around the Table

Around the Table is a direct education intervention for youth that upholds principles of trauma-informed engagement and nourishment. It is designed to improve cooking skills, food safety, food resource management, and healthy eating, as well as increase awareness surrounding stress, emotional eating, health values, and feeding children. Participants enjoy hands-on cooking, facilitated conversations, and interactive activities that build healthy connections to food, self, and community.  

Additionally, Around the Table: Nourishing Families is for young adults and parents. It is a curriculum that upholds principles of trauma-informed engagement and nourishment where participants enjoy conversation, reflection, cooking, sharing a meal together, and learning holistic skills to care for their families’ nutritional well-being.  

Target Behavior: Healthy Eating  
Intervention Type: Direct Education