Heart Partners: A Strategy for Promoting Effective Diffusion of School Health Promotion Programs

Abstract

Heart Partners uses a straightforward, interpersonal approach to increase acceptance and use of innovations in school health promotion. In accord with the linkage model of innovation diffusion, developers of a new program or technology (i.e., resource system) simply designate and train selected members to be recruiters and allies of individual advocates at the campus-level (i.e., user system). Linkage is supported by supplying advocates and allies with guidelines and materials that encourage ongoing, interactive, interpersonal partnerships to promote effective implementation of the new technology at the school. Empirical assessment of this simple strategy implemented by the Texas Affiliate of the American Heart Association showed a twofold to fourfold increase in actual use and reach of school health promotion packages, with an average reported volunteer time of less than three hours per month.

In Preparation of the Nationwide Dissemination of the School‐Based Obesity Prevention Program DOiT: Stepwise Development Applying the Intervention Mapping Protocol

“…From the interviews and also supported by previous studies, it became clear that a personal support system could narrow the gap between the developers of the program and the users. During the initial study and the pilot study, the principal researcher was the contact person for all implementation issues for the schools.…”

Clarifying the concepts in knowledge transfer: a literature review

“…Linking agents can be individuals or agencies at any level in the healthcare system (e.g. local, regional, provincial and federal) (Monahan & Scheirer 1988, Roberts-Gray et al 1998. Individuals or agencies are trained for this formal role, and most linkers are found in agencies external to the adopters.…”

Bridge-It: A System for Predicting Implementation Fidelity for School-Based Tobacco Prevention Programs

“…These include implementation checklists and guidelines (Roberts-Gray, 1985;Steps for Successful Implementation, 2000), recruitment and training of campus-level change agents or program champions (Hall & Hord, 1987Roberts-Gray et al, 1998), templates for assessing and modifying amounts and types of implementation support (Roberts-Gray & Scheirer, 1988), incentives and financial support to build capacity for change (Parcel et al, 1989), on-site coaching and technical assistance for implementers (Gingiss, 1993), workshops and videos for program implementers (Kam, Greenberg, & Walls, 2003), fully documented program manuals for training and supervising intervention staff and for monitoring program quality and performance (Mowbray, Holter, Teague, & Bybee, 2003), school-community partnerships (Spoth, Greenberg, Bierman, & Redmond, 2004) and technical assistance and independent monitoring to build capacity for implementation (Elliott & Mihalic, 2004). However, persistently low rates of success in achieving implementation fidelity indicate the need for additional study of ways and means to assist students, families, and communities to derive desired benefits from school prevention programs.…”