The California Project LEAN and American Cancer Society's Cancer Action Network Connection

California Project LEAN (CPL) provided a training for statewide volunteers of the American Cancer Society's Cancer Action Network (ACS CAN). The training gave an overview of Local School Wellness Policy and school board advocacy, with special focus on ACS CAN priority areas, which include: strong school nutrition standards, food marketing, and physical education in schools. Through this newly-strengthened connection, CPL and ACS CAN have the potential to reach more school districts' decision-makers with the message that healthy school environments are linked to academic success.

A Bay Area Community Applies Parents in Action! to Enact Change

California Project LEAN (CPL) provided two statewide "Train-the-Trainer" sessions for key intermediaries who currently or are planning to engage parents in Local School Wellness Policy (LSWP) efforts. The purpose of the full-day sessions, held in Oakland and Los Angeles, was to equip participants to train parents to advocate for healthy school environments using CPL's 6-lesson curriculum, Parent Lesson Plans: Advocating for Healthier School Environments.

One participant, Robin Galas from the Family Engagement Institute at Foothill College in Palo Alto, California shared her experience in using the Parent Lesson Plans:

"I wanted to follow up with you as we utilized California Project LEAN's Toolkit and Lesson Plans on engaging parents in local school wellness policy during the spring quarter to about 10 individual parents/caregivers in East Palo Alto at an elementary school through a grant from Get Healthy San Mateo County.

"Brentwood Academy is a Title I school and demographically, the parents we served were all Latino whose primary language was Spanish.  We did not get through the entire curriculum as the families were very excited to implement the lessons learned and decided fairly early on that they wanted to eliminate chocolate milk and juice from their school's food program, promote water consumption, and work with the school to install a water dispenser in the cafeteria.

"The families were successful in obtaining school leadership support for their goals, conducting two outreach events, one of which was a Water Day where they set up tables before and after school to inform students, other parents, and staff of the amount of sugar in a carton of chocolate milk and juice, as well as, handed out water and water promotion materials like stickers, flyers, and "Potter the Otter" books.

"The second event was in conjunction with their school's Carnival, which enabled our families to address students and parents and hand out materials.  They distributed ReThink Your Drink Posters to all of the teachers for their classrooms, distributed a 'support letter' to parents, and ultimately addressed the district food service provider. They were successful in eliminating chocolate milk from their school for the upcoming academic year, which began the conversation amongst other principals in the district around chocolate milk and also prompted dialogue around hydration stations in the cafeterias district-wide.  Our families are committed to continuing water promotion into next year, and we secured funding to upgrade/repair water fountains on campus in conjunction with these efforts. 

"They are also committed to continuing their advocacy district-wide as they know that their children will move onto middle school and are acutely aware of the high levels of obesity in the community. Finally, through the curriculum and the examination of their district's health and wellness policy, one parent discovered that it was against policy for her daughter to be prohibited from attending recess for being behind academically.  Consequently, her daughter was depressed and didn't like going to school.  The parent spoke to her daughter's teacher, cited policy, and worked to find a solution with the teacher that didn't involve depriving her daughter recess.

"I wanted to share these success stories with you as validation of the curriculum.  Our families were empowered by what they learned from your toolkit and lessons and felt that they could create healthy changes in their schools.  They had a sense of teamwork and collaboration by working together to bring about some important changes to their schools."

With much gratitude, we want to thank Robin for sharing her story with us and are pleased to learn that CPL's resources were a part of their success!

Participants received instruction on delivering a one-hour training to parents to educate them on the importance of limiting children's access to sugary drinks and how parents can advocate for healthier beverages in their children's schools.

Staff from local school districts and community organizations as well as county and city government agencies attended the training, and had already formulated some plans to work with parents by the time they completed the session.

In addition to the one-hour lesson plan, participants were provided with CPL's Parents in Action guide and Parent Lesson Plans (in English and Spanish), to encourage them to continue to work with parents to improve the school nutrition and physical activity environment.

At the conclusion of the training, Imperial County Public Health staff member Jorge Torres presented plaques to the Imperial County Medical Clinic in recognition of the Clinic's adoption of healthy beverage standards in their El Centro and Calexico locations. These standards were adopted as part of CA4Health, a statewide program of the Public Health Institute funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Community Transformation Grant initiative. Funding for the training was provided by CA4Health and The California Endowment.

 

About CA4Health

The Public Health Institute (PHI) was awarded a Community Transformation Grant to implement CA4Health in 42 small/rural California counties with a population of 500,000 or less. CA4Health seeks to reduce health disparities and provides funding to 12 small/rural counties and non-financial resources to 30 others.

CA4Health focuses on the following four strategic directions:

California Project LEAN serves as the Healthy Eating Active Living Strategic Direction Lead providing support to the CA4Health counties as they work to  facilitate the adoption of healthier beverage standards for meetings, vending and procurement in places like schools, community organizations and government. Check out California Project LEAN's Beverage Standards