Protecting the Future of our Children
January 23-26, 2007
Anaheim Marriott Hotel

Two Pre-Conference Sessions:

Building Local Public Health Department Capacity to Prevent Obesity in California
School Nutrition Standards and Local School Wellness Policies

School Nutrition Standards
and Local School Wellness Policies:
Implementation, Monitoring
and Evaluation for Success

Presented by California Project LEAN and Samuels & Associates
Anaheim, CA, January 23, 2007, Noon – 4:30 pm

Background

School environments are uniquely positioned to reinforce healthy eating behaviors, promote physical activity, and prevent childhood obesity. Across the country, states and school districts have developed and adopted school wellness and nutrition policies to improve school nutrition and physical activity environments.  Implementing, monitoring and evaluating these policies are the critical next steps in ensuring policy success.

Target Audience

Individuals involved in the implementation and monitoring of school wellness and nutrition policies including food services personnel, community advocates, health care professionals, and school health or wellness policy committee members.

Workshop Goal

Participants will gain tools and resources for implementing, monitoring and evaluating school wellness and nutrition policies.

The workshop will feature the following resources:

1. Policy in Action: A Guide to Implementing School Wellness Policies, a step-by-step road map for developing a school wellness policy implementation plan developed by California Project LEAN and the University of California, Berkeley Center for Weight and Health
2. User-friendly policy monitoring and evaluation templates developed by Samuels & Associates, including environmental assessments, stakeholder interviews, marketing and advertising assessments and financial analyses.
3. Policy briefs (school beverages, competitive foods, and physical education) and school nutrition policy implementation cases studies developed by Samuels & Associates

Workshop Objectives

Participants will be able to:

1. Identify the critical steps in implementing, monitoring, and evaluating a local school wellness policy.
2. Develop an implementation plan for at least one component of the policy.
3. Identify strategies for monitoring and evaluating the impact of school nutrition policies.
4. Identify resources for ensuring successful implementation of local wellness policies.
5. Share experiences, challenges and lessons learned implementing school nutrition standards and local wellness policies.

Workshop Hours

Noon to 4:30 pm. Lunch is included.

Workshop Costs

The fee for this workshop is $25. Full scholarships are available for all registrants who request a scholarship. This workshop is made possible through the support of The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Building Local Public Health Department Capacity
to Prevent Obesity in California

As the obesity epidemic continues to burgeon in California and nationally, local public health departments will need to assess and expand their own capacity to address this issue comprehensively. This workshop will provide a framework and strategies to support local public health departments to coordinate both internally and to partner with other governmental and non-governmental agencies to curb the rise of obesity and diabetes.

Learn about innovative and effective obesity prevention strategies being implemented throughout the state. State and local experts from public health and other key agencies will share best practices on their successful collaborations to create environmental and policy change addressing physical activity and nutrition.

Target Audience

We encourage a small leadership team (2-5 people from each local public health jurisdiction) to attend. This team should include local public health department leaders such as the public health director or health officer, director of nutrition, director of physical activity or director of other chronic disease prevention programs that impact healthy eating and physical activity environments. This team may also include a representative from your local parks and recreation department, city or county planning members, and preschool and school personnel.

Workshop Goal

To integrate comprehensive approaches to change physical activity and nutrition strategies in obesity prevention within local public health departments. To strengthen relationships with key community partners and to implement county-wide obesity prevention interventions.

Workshop Objectives

1. Assist local health department leadership to develop capacity within their department to influence healthy eating and physical activity environments.
2. Build a common understanding of a comprehensive approach to obesity prevention using the full spectrum of prevention/social ecological model.
3. Support public health leaders to coordinate and integrate obesity prevention activities among multiple programs throughout local health departments.
4. Provide program staff best practices on integrating physical activity into obesity prevention strategies.
5. Determine ways to assess community indicators/assets as well as determine local public health departments’ capacity to move towards creating collaborative obesity prevention interventions.
6. Engage parks and recreation departments, city/county planning and/or school districts/schools to create multi-faceted obesity prevention programs in communities.

Workshop Hours

10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.

The pre-conference session cost has been reduced to $25, lunch is provided. Register