Developing and Evaluating Newsletters for Parent Engagement in Sustainability via Active Garden Education (SAGE)

Abstract

Physical activity and nutrition preschool programming must involve parents in positive long-term healthy habits. This paper describes parent outreach in the Sustainability via Active Garden Education (SAGE) study. Newsletters were sent home with children to promote family opportunities to increase physical activity and fruit and vegetable intake. The content was generated via a community advisory board participatory process. Messages linked SAGE curriculum topics with home and community activities. Parents rated frequency of receipt, helpfulness, satisfaction, and use of content. Most participants were Hispanic (>78%) and women (>95%). Most reported receiving newsletters; nearly all reported that they were helpful. Favorite newsletter components included recipes, pictures of their children and seasonal produce spotlights. Most reported doing physical activities from the newsletters (51.9%). Few reported doing featured physical activity (8.9%) and fruit and vegetable (12.7%) community activities. Newsletter outreach methods are a simple strategy to add value to preschool-based interventions promoting healthy families.

Sustainability via Active Garden Education: The Sustainability Action Plan Model and Process

“…At the meso level, teacher training and support is used to deliver an enhanced garden-based curriculum to meet macro-level ECEC standards for obesity prevention and early education. Parents are engaged using weekly newsletters linked to garden and classroom activities to enhance exo-level transfer of benefits [33].…”

“…Newsletters include healthy recipes that parents can prepare at home, physical activities for parents and children to complete together, information about local community events for nutrition and physical activity, fun activities for children to complete (e.g., pictures to color, connect the dots drawings), and pictures of children participating in SAGE at the ECEC. Newsletters are available in English and Spanish [33,36].…”

“…ECEC will directors evaluate factors associated with program sustainability related to ECEC administration, policies, and procedures, rate how SAGE has impacted their site, score their self-efficacy for sustaining SAGE beyond the funding period, and participate in post-intervention interviews. Parents will complete surveys evaluating the newsletters and rating their interaction [33]. SAGE staff, in coordination with ECEC teachers and directors, will complete assessments to evaluate the physical activity and nutrition environment at the ECEC, as well as record meeting minutes of all meetings with CAB members, ECEC teachers, and ECEC directors.…”

“…The EMPA and EMO postulate that health-related behaviors and associated outcomes occur in a dynamic system with external contextual factors that influence individual behavioral choices and decisions directly and indirectly [28,29,31]. These external factors include children's micro-level environments, such as ECECs and homes, their meso-level linkages, actors or activities within micro-level environments, such as teachers or family members, and exo-level linkages, actors or activities that transfer benefits to other people or places [33]. Macro-level factors might include societal and cultural norms or policies, as well as, community-and organizationlevel factors within children's ecologic milieu.…”