Toddlers Toolkit
Rachel Harris of Plymouth City Council talks about thier production of a toolkit with 10 activity sheets which can be used to deliver food and other safety messages to 0-3 year olds and their parents.
The activity sheets cover key messages regarding food safety, healthy eating, being active, sun safety and toy safety.
A CD accompanies the toolkit and contains the majority of the resources required for each activity. The resources from the CD are available on the Council’s webpage. The toolkit and resources can also be easily adapted for use by any age group.
The project was developed to feed into the Council’s objectives to ‘aim to reduce inequalities between communities’ and the following LAA targets
- H1: Reduce health inequalities between neighbourhoods and communities of interest within the City
- H2: Prevent illness and promote health and wellbeing by tackling the underlying causes of ill health
- Prevent illness and promote health and wellbeing by tackling the underlying causes of ill health - NI 056(1) Obesity amongst primary school children in Year 6.
Aims and Objectives
Aim
To produce and distribute a consolidated ‘knowledge toolkit’ covering domestic food hygiene, food labelling and nutrition for the parents of 0-3 year old children.
Objectives
- Produce and publish a knowledge toolbox targeted at parents of 0-3 year old children
- Recruit suitable trainers from the private, public and voluntary sector to deliver the toolbox talks
- Provide suitable training to the trainers to enable them to deliver the toolbox talks
- Establish a sustainable system for the long term update of the knowledge toolbox and trainers.
Partners
• Food Standards Agency • Plymouth City Council Children Centres, • Public Health Development Unit, • South West Health Protection Unit, • Health Visitors.
Methodology
An initial meeting was set up with a number of Health Visitors, Children Centre Managers, Community Public Health Practitioners and a Health Protection Nurse. The aim and objectives of the project were presented to the group and we discussed what the toolkit should contain. It was also discussed who would deliver the toolkit and what training would be required. As the toolkit was to be piloted initially before it is available on the website for everyone to access, it was decided that the training would be focussed for the Health Visitors, Children Centres, and Community Public Health Practitioners, and not opened up to all parent run groups at this stage.
The group suggested that the following training would be appropriate in order to be able to deliver the toolkit effectively: -
- Level 2 Food Safety
- Level 2 Healthy Eating and Special Diets
- Basic Cookery Skills
- Professional Trainers Certificate
Dates were arranged for the training and sent to the group members to distribute to their teams. As the venue for the training courses was held at a local church, the Parent and Toddler Group Leaders were also invited to attend the training and be part of the pilot. The original project outline advised that the project would be focussed in the most deprived areas of the City.
However the group felt that the project should not be restricted to these areas and should be offered to the whole of the City to ensure the message is delivered consistently. It was raised that obesity rates were often higher in less deprived areas.
Promotion
We worked with local health visitors and children centres to promote and pilot the project
Resources
We received £10,000 grant funding from the Food Standards Agency.
Evaluation
Pre and post evaluation questionnaires were included to be completed by the parents so that we could determine if a change in behaviour has been achieved since receiving the information. An evaluation form was also included for the Leaders who delivered the packs. The packs were distributed to 14 children centres, 4 health visitors, 2 Community Health Practitioners and 1 Church Parent and Toddler Group.
We have received positive feedback from the centres that are using the packs. All of the centres found the toolkit very useful and said they would use the pack in the future.
Some comments on the feedback sheets included: -
‘All the activity sheets were very much appreciated, much work must have gone into compiling them’.
‘They were great for the facilitator to use as a tool to ensure the right messages were shared with the participants. The resources that could be accessed to support this material were of real benefit and encouraged interactive/visual activities for those with differing learning styles. I feel this method really re-enforced learning’.
‘I would like to see an additional sheet on budgeting/shopping’.
‘Within the Fruit and vegetable activity sheet – it would be useful to include information on how easily fruit and vegetables could be easily hidden in cooking’.
Traffic light labelling activity – ‘the parents enjoyed the traffic activity box, they felt this was a valuable source of information and commented on spending more time looking at labels whilst shopping. They were particularly interested in the salt content and the measured salt/sugar pots helped to visualise this’.
Unfortunatley none of the groups were able to complete the detailed evaluation forms for the parents that we had originally requested. Due to the varying number of parents that attended the groups, some found that only 2 people attended on certain weeks and therefore could not evaluate the overall impact of the whole pack. Some of the groups have advised that due to time constraints and practicalities of different groups they will only be able to use one sheet every month so the overall evaluation will take longer and may be more difficult to prove a lifestyle change if people drop out of the group during the year.
I have received one feedback pack from a Children’s Centre that split the activities and used these with different groups, therefore the evaluation was not effective as the parents had not experienced a range of messages. The activity sheets have been altered following the comments received by the Food Standards Agency and from the trial.
Lessons Learned
I found that trying to make contact with the right people was very difficult. Phone calls and follow up emails were sent to the Lead Health Visitors and the Children’s Centre Development Officer and representatives attending the initial meeting. However due to busy workloads the training was not taken up as quickly as I had envisaged. However the key workers that I made contact with through the initial group were very helpful in passing the message to the relevant people.
Since the initial project, we have secured funding through the local college and are providing low cost or free courses to this sector in Level 2 Food Safety and Level 2 Healthy Eating and Special Diets.
We are also working with the Public Health Development Unit on a cookery skills course for Young Parents, as a result of this project. If we were to do the project again, we would focus on the voluntary sector as we found the health visitors and children centres had different priorities and although keen on the outset of the project, did not get involved as they had promised.
We have started delivering further training to the voluntary sector and will focus our resources to them over the next year to progress the pack.
Future Developments
Since the project, Basic Cookery Skills Courses for young parents have been delivered by the Public Health Development Unit.
Our department have produced a user friendly food hygiene pack to accompany the cookery course and are offering the parents to attend the Level 2 Food Safety courses free of charge.
We have obtained funding from the City College Plymouth to run reduced cost food hygiene, nutrition and train the trainer courses. These have been targeted at the Children Centres and voluntary groups.
Each year we will evaluate the toolkit and add any additional resources or additional activity sheets as requested. The toolkit will be a sustainable resource that will be available to all.
Contact Details
Contact Name: Rachael Harris
Job Title: Senior Environmental Health Officer
Phone: 01752 304742
Email: Rachael.harris@plymouth.gov.uk
Fax: 01752 226314
Website: www.plymouth.gov.uk
Organisation: Plymouth City Council
Address: Public Protection Service, Floor 6, Civic Centre, Plymouth, Devon, PL1 2AA
This case study was added 30/07/2009