Eat Well Tasmanian Kids

Eat Right Grow Bright Final Report

The Eat Right Grow Bright project was funded through the Federal Government Communities for Children initiative and it ran from 2006 - 2009.

Resources Developed

Living Well Poster and Sticker Series

The Great Lunchbox Dilemma Display Kit

This Display Kit offers visual information about:

• Comparison of a healthy versus an unhealthy lunchbox
• Great ways to improve kids lunch boxes
• Cost comparison of snacks
• Great alternatives to chips.

Great for parent displays in childcare centres, community health centres, schools and libraries. This is what it will look like once you print it out and set it up.

Healthy Snacking for Children Display Kit

The Display Kit offers visual information about:

• Great ideas for snacks at home, school and childcare
• Fun snack ideas
• Cost comparison of snacks

A Child Health Nurse at the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre borrowed the newly developed Healthy Snacks for Children display kit for a session she was running with a local playgroup. She commented:

" Thanks for your help today with the resources. My life at present is a little busy and sometimes it creates a very last minute approach to things that ought not to be last minute. Thanks to your on the spot thinking I looked very organised at the play group and had a wonderful display. I particularly found it helpful to have the laminated "road map" on how to put the display together. Thanks for making me look far more professional than I was going to be today".

Think Before You Drink Display Kit

This kit is designed to encourage parents and carers to offer children water as the main drink choice.

The Kit contains:

• Visual comparison on sugar content of many drinks
• Tips to assist the promotion of water as a drink

5 Lunchbox Ideas Display Kit

This kit is designed to provide parents and carers with lunchbox ideas for children. It encourages everyday foods from the 5 food groups.

Healthy Events Tasmania: A guide for event organisers

The Healthy Events Tasmania guide has been developed in partnership with a range of health organisations and includes information on the following: safe and healthy food, promoting physical activity, smoke-free events, SunSafety, waste management, responsible service of alcohol, inclusiveness and safety. The guide is available at the Burnie City Council, Burnie service providers, and will be distributed statewide via Eat Well Tasmania and the contributing health organisations.

Nutrition Related Activity Ideas for Younger Children Booklet

This booklet was developed in response to the demand from service providers and family food educators for activities that promote healthy eating messages to children. The booklet is available on the Eat Well Tasmania website and has been distributed to Burnie-based service providers. The guide is regularly downloaded by people worldwide.

Strawberry Costume

A strawberry costume is currently being developed by Oddbod Characters in Melbourne and, when complete, will remain on the northwest coast for service providers to utilise as a nutrition promotion tool.

Breastfeeding Welcome Here poster

This poster promotes the logo associated with the Breastfeeding Welcome Here campaign. It looks like this:

Resources Distributed

207 Smile Well Posters
205 Start Well Posters
209 Eat Well Posters
206 Play Well Posters
3226 Living Well Stickers
52 Healthy Snacking for Children Display Kits
72 Think Before You Drink Display Kits
38 Five Lunchbox Ideas Display Kits
38 Lunchbox Dilemma Display Kits (revised)
48 Healthy Events Guide Tasmania: A guide for event organisers
50 Nutrition Related Activity Ideas for Younger Children Booklets
49 Breastfeeding Welcome Here posters

Activities

Over the duration of the Eat Right Grow Bright project we facilitated activities with parents and children at a range of community group settings. These included: Salvation Army Parenting Partners Program, Acton School Launching into Learning Program (x2), Burnie Primary School Launching into Learning Program, North West Environment Centre Healthy Foods Day and Centacare Burnie Community Partner events.

We promoted the Eat Right Grow Bright resource range and the Go for 2 & 5 resources to family food educators, child care centres, playgroups and Launch Into Learning teachers in the Burnie area as part of Veg and Fruit Month 2008 . We also distributed Go for 2 & 5 resource packs to fruit and veg retailers.

Events

Eat Right Grow Bright Expo

To celebrate the end of the Eat Right Grow Bright project, 37 service providers attended the Resources Expo. Service providers were given a last chance opportunity to obtain the resources that had been developed over the duration of the project, including the newly developed display kits, Healthy Events Tasmania and Breastfeeding Welcome Here poster.

Playgroup Tasmania's Children's Expo

The vegetable growing workshop held at the 2008 Playgroup Tasmania Children's Expo proved to be extremely popular. A local gardening guru was invited to run the workshop and involved children and families in hands-on activities related to vegetable growing, composting and organic gardening. He was a very engaging facilitator and was able to engage children and families in the workshop. Of the 28 evaluation questionnaires that were returned, only one person stated that they had not learnt anything new about gardening.

Some of the comments we received included:

• "Worms are cool"
• "Would love to make our own compost"
• "I have learnt that compost can be made from anything"
• "Like the vegie box garden"
• "Great simple composting ideas"
• "Love it"
• "Very interesting"

Media

The Eat Right Grow Bright Project developed a very successful partnership with the local community newspaper, the Coastal Times. As part of this partnership we contributed a monthly column that included an article on a topic of our choice, what's in season and a seasonal recipe.

Articles included:

• Healthy living focus of monthly feature (March 2008)
• Eat Right Grow Bright: Burnie program targets kids (March 2008)
• Building Blocks for a Healthier Lunchbox (April 2008)
• What's in Season in May? (May 2008)
• Breastfeeding Friendly Businesses (June 2008)
• Think Before You Drink: Dental Awareness Month (August 2008)
• Superfoods Chance to Shine: September National Fruit and Veg Month (September 2008)
• Balanced Snacks: Healthy treats for school, home, work (October 2008)
• Big Expo for Burnie: Playgroup Tasmania on Fun Mission (October 2008)
• Bacteria Growth Prevention in School Lunch boxes (November 2008)
• Stocking Fillers Can Be Healthy (December 2008)
• Have Fun With Food in the Holidays (January 2009)
• Healthy Eating Starts With Fruit and Veg (February 2009)
• Tucker Without The Tantrums (March 2009)
• Time to Try New Tastes, Textures: Sampling different foods all part of growing up (March 2009)
• Berry Scone Wedges (March 2009)
• Enjoy an Easter Egg Hunt (April 2009)

We also had two articles appear in the Advocate about the newly trained Family Food Educators (April 2008?) and as part of a media promotion we did for World Alliance on Breastfeeding Action Week (August 2008). We also placed a paid advertisement in the Advocate to promote the list of Breastfeeding Friendly businesses (June 2009).

The Eat Right Grow Bright project officer was also interviewed by ABC National Radio at the North West Environment Centre's Healthy Foods Day (May 2009).

Training

This project involved the delivery of nutrition training sessions to childcare workers and family day carers to increase their knowledge of the nutritional requirements of young children and their skills and confidence in communicating with parents about nutrition related issues. This activity has also involved supporting early years service providers to integrate health promotion activities into service provision by providing nutrition advice and resource support.

One of the outcomes set for the Eat Right Grow Bright project was: improvements in the knowledge and skills of early years service providers to integrate nutrition information into service delivery . This outcome was measured via a post-training evaluation form from 18 childcare workers and family day carers who attended a nutrition training session focusing on the nutritional requirements of young children, including specific information on lunch boxes and how to communicate with parents on these issues. Results indicated that;

•  94% participants reported that their knowledge of food and nutrition in childcare had increased as a result of the training session. Examples included;

•  "I now know the amount that children should be eating during the day"

•  "It's really broadened my thinking of nutritional requirements, as low additive has been my focus"

•  "I've learnt ideas for different ways to engage the children in the preparation of food"

•  "I've learnt some good alternatives for me to pass on to parents to replace some expensive, unhealthy snacks with cheaper more nutritious choices".

•  94% participants reported an intention to apply these newly learnt skills and ideas into their current work. Examples included;

•  "I will definitely use this information and displays which will help parents choose more wisely"

•  "I will provide parents who give their children juice, more information on alternatives"

•  "I will talk to parents more about food and what should be in the lunchbox"

Programs

Family Food Patch

As part of the Eat Right Grow Bright project, eleven volunteer Family Food Educators were trained. This involved supporting Family Food Educators to spread the word about nutrition and physical activity to other parents in the Burnie community. To support Family Food Educators Eat Right Grow Bright has provided resources, held a PATCH update day for Educators and invited them to assist in a number of community activities.

Mum's the word

Acknowledgements

Eat Well Tasmania would like to sincerely thank Kate DePaoli, consultant dietician for this project, for her hard work conducting the needs assessment, planning and delivering the Eat Right Grow Bright initiative.