Building Healthy Families (BHF) is a family- based healthy weight program for children and their families. Key behavior change strategies including goal setting for both lifestyle modification and weight loss, self-monitoring, rewards/contingency management, role modeling, and stimulus control/ modifying the environment.
Building Healthy Families has demonstrated success for both children and adults. Children with obesity have lost more than 5% of their body mass in twelve weeks while adult weight loss has averaged 14 lbs in 12 weeks with some losing up to 40 lbs.
Building Healthy Families has been packaged for rural or low resource communities to implement. Our approach was to develop a package for communities that may not have the full range of expertise but have strong interest in addressing the issue.
Our packaged BHF program includes online training resources and implementation strategies for community implementation teams to successfully implement the program in their community. Online training modules were created for each implementation team role including: program coordinator and nutrition, physical activity, lifestyle and recruitment coordinators. The packaged program includes presentation materials, handouts, and lesson plans that increase the likelihood that the delivery of the program will be consistent across communities. The Online Training and Program Resources includes a modular approach providing training modules for program facilitators, knowledge checks to ensure mastery of program components, recruitment resources for community, school and clinical settings, all delivery materials, embedded fidelity assessments for quality assurance, and a data portal to track participant success.
Ideally, each community interested in implementing BHF should have a team consisting of representatives from community organizations that can assist in the implementation of the program as well as the recruitment of families to join BHF. This could come from the local health department, hospital, school district, extension office and/or local recreation centers. Roles include a local pediatrician or family practitioner to assist in securing medical referrals and overseeing any health issues that may arise. Support from the local school districts and school nursing staff and local health clinics are necessary for recruitment and screening for identification of potential participants. A local social worker could be engaged to assist in the identification of low-income, at risk-children. Program delivery team will include a dietitian or individual with experience in healthy eating promotions (extension, health department), someone with background in behavior modification strategies (health promotion or psychology) and a physical activity program coordinator. This person should have experience implementing activities with children (parks and recreation, YMCA, youth fitness instructor, etc).
Slides from our recent informal webinar for Communities to review-
BHF includes a minimum of 32 contact hours consisting of three main program components: nutrition education, behavior modification, and physical activity. All program materials are at an easy to read level for adults and children. Nutrition education content includes the Traffic Light Eating Plan, energy balance, grocery store tour, portion sizes, reading food labels, healthy kitchen assessment, dining out, snacking, whole grains, fruit and vegetable taste testing, modifying recipes, protein, and beverages. Behavior modification complements nutrition education. The physical activity component includes non-sport oriented games focused on fun and family interaction with goals for steps/day of activity. Education is provided to children and parents together and independently based on the topic and depth of information. Participants and parents are expected to attend 12 continuous weeks of education (2 hours/session) followed by 6 relapse prevention refresher sessions out to one year.
If you are interested in learning more or want to be contacted email bhf@nebraska.edu or visit buildinghealthyfamilies.us. If you have additional questions, please do not hesitate to call us at 308-865-8336.
Mountain West Prevention Research Center (MW-PRC)
The Mountain West Prevention Research Center (MW-PRC) aims to develop a scalable approach to find and recruit families that could benefit from participating in Building Healthy Families (BHF) or similar programs in rural communities. While resources like BHF may exist to help families eat healthier, move more, and maintain a healthy body weight, communities often struggle to recruit enough families to run these programs. The MW-PRC project will partner with community health centers to identify eligible families and then use text-messaging and active outreach phone calls to reach out to them and encourage their participation in BHF. We will also send families reminders and motivational messages throughout the project to encourage continued participation. Ultimately, we will produce tools that any community could use to increase the reach of Family Healthy Weight Programs in rural or micropolitan areas to decrease childhood obesity.
Our team moved the successful Building Healthy Families (BHF), an evidence-based family healthy weight program, into a user-friendly electronic package of training and program materials. Healthcare, community, or public health organizations can use this packaged program in small towns, rural regions, and other low resource settings to implement BHF into their own communities. To learn more about the CDC's Childhood Obesity Research Demonstration (CORD) Project 3.0 go here.
Do we have to have 2 organizations to apply?
We encourage at least two community organizations to work together to implement BHF, one to focus on recruiting families and one to focus on implementation. An example, could be having a school partner that uses the BMI report card to send information home to families about their child’s weight. An invitation could be included in those materials to help engage families in BHF. A second partner might be cooperative extension who could have health educators to implement BHF from week to week with families.
Some organizations could do both roles, so it could just be one organization. However, this may be difficult to sustain. We anticipate that more than two organizations could be involved in the program—a dietitian from the grocery store, a psychologist from a school, and a physical education teach from a school could all realistically participate in delivering BHF.
I am worried about recruiting families. How will you help us to engage families so we have enough people for a program?
We have developed ways that local clinics can help identify families and use a physician referral to get families involved. We will also provide information on this method to all successful communities. Of course, if you have a great way to recruit families that also works!
What are these pre-application surveys about?
Completing the surveys is required and we make it easy by sending a unique survey link to each person listed in the letter of intent. However, because we don’t want to influence your responses, the answers to the survey questions will not be used as part of the selection process.
You will not be asked for your name on the surveys and all information you provide will be confidential. It will not be reported back to your organization or community, except in aggregate across the selected communities.
Can the project lead ‘count’ as one of the two pre-application surveys from an organization?
Yes, as long as s/he is someone with decision making authority for the organization or will be involved in implementation of the recruitment or program delivery activities.
Why do you want at least 2 people from each organization?
We want to have a decision-maker and a doer from each organization involved so we know that the commitment can be acted on (the administrator can make decisions on resources) and is feasible (people who will implement—the doers—have a good sense of what can and can’t be done in their role).
What if we are not “rural”?
If you are not from a small town or rural area, if your clientele is low resource, you qualify.
Do we need a separate letter of intent for each organization that would be involved?
No, you just need to have a letter of intent from the organization that you consider to be the lead. You do need to have pre-application surveys for all organizations that plan to be involved.
How many communities will be selected?
30 communities will be selected to implement Building Healthy Families in their communities.
How much support with communities receive?
All successful communities will receive $5000 for program start up and implementation. All communities will also receive a BHF “Kit” that includes all materials and equipment to deliver the program as well as a stipend for disposable food items used in education. Half of the successful applicants will be chosen to also participate in a community learning collaborative to support implementation and development of sustainability action plans for their program. The other communities will receive technical support on the packaged program and materials.
How long will our community be involved in the project?
Participation for the selected communities will be for 24 months
Are there any plans to help communities sustain the program?
All communities will receive feedback and lessons learned during the project related to sustainability and potential payment models will be developed and shared across all participating communities.
Do we need any kind of credential to offer the program?
You don’t need to have any specific credentials. However, the program delivery team should include an individual with experience in healthy eating promotions (extension, health department), someone with interest in behavior modification strategies (background in health promotion or psychology) and a physical activity program coordinator.
