Childhood Obesity Intervention Program: Planning, Stakeholders, and Implementation

Introduction

The “Childhood Obesity Intervention program” will be a private/public partnership with a mission of reducing and preventing childhood obesity by creating environments that are healthy for all families and children through education, advocacy, environmental change and policy development. The purpose of the project will be to create, mobilize and support partnerships among different stakeholders, provide vision and leadership and coordinate region wide efforts in preventing and reducing childhood obesity. The paper will apply program logic and present a detailed plan that will cover the planning stage, key stakeholders, the implementation stage, evaluation plan and how the project will be sustained.

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Planning stage

There are different factors that are needed in the planning stage for the project. First, different stakeholders will be needed and will be engaged such as institutions, agencies, neighbourhoods, organizations and individuals to work together in combating childhood obesity issue (Green, Kreuter & Green, 2005). The project will leverage existing resources and inspire new partners to join the cause.

Another requirement needed will be infrastructures for engagement of the volunteer leaders in every stakeholders domain, engagement of the partners that will be existing and the new ones, workgroup meetings and other meetings where the leaders will share their work and also identify opportunities for cross collaboration (Issel, 2009).

Another important requirement will be funds for budgeting. The importance of developing a realistic budget for the health program will allow the health educators to get to know in advance whether the project will have enough money for performing the things that are needed to be done or those that the health educator wishes to do. Developing a realistic budget for this health program will also be important since it will allow the health educators to come up a plan for spending the money, and also ensure that enough money will be available for the needed things and for the most important things (Atkins, 2003).

Key stakeholders and partners

A stakeholder is a person who has interest in a particular project and benefits from it (Dignan & Carr, 1987). The stakeholders whom will be involved in this project include the healthcare, government, early childhood, schools and after schools, media, community and businesses. These stakeholders are important to the program in several ways. This initiative planners and all partners will have collaborative series of workshops and meetings with an aim of bringing together non-traditional and traditional partners to collaborate and build healthier communities. For instance, growing project promoters will plan workshops with transportation/land use planning professionals and public health to explore ways of integrating public health in the community designs other meetings will be done with legislators to support healthy food retail and community gardens (Shortell & Richardson, 1978).

Government

Government as a stakeholder in the childhood obesity initiative will be important because they will conduct the following activities in supporting the proposed strategies

• Provide technical, support and resources assistance to other stakeholders
• Provide the much needed stewardship in addressing and preventing childhood obesity across different government jurisdictions, departments and partners through collaboration (Kane, 1993)

Healthcare systems

These stakeholders will:

• Engage the health providers to advocate and support for health environmental policy and systems change
• Provide technical, support and resources to other healthcare stakeholders and providers
• Provide a forum where stakeholders in the healthcare can leverage and share resources (Green, Kreuter, & Green, 2005).

Providers for schools and after schools

These stakeholders will provide a continuous support to different schools wellness leads, other partners. The school district representatives will act as liaisons between the other stakeholders and the schools. Moreover, they will provide resources to other stakeholders such as nutrition education, wellness policy trainings, and policy monitoring and communication assistance in addition to funding opportunities.

Early childhood community

These stakeholders will engage in activities and programs that that incorporates education for children, staff, and parents on making choices on health foods as well as physical activities as a daily routine. Moreover, other programs for children will include structured movements in physical actives such as running, walking, hopping, skipping, galloping, stretching, twisting, dribbling, kicking and catching. Other activities will include counselling to the families with children at risk of becoming obese or overweight (Issel, 2009).

Community organizations and residents

These stakeholders who will be participating in this initiative will be significant in performing the following activities to support the proposed program

• Engaging in community, youth, faith, public and grassroots organizations to advocate and support for environmental change and policy change
• Provide technical and resoles assistance as well as supporting organizations in making environmental and policy changes (Atkins, 2003).

The media industry

These stakeholders will perform the following activities to support the proposed program:

• Provide support and foster relationship to local media in encouraging portrayal of the childhood obesity condition from the angle of greater environmental and social factors instead of solely on individual behaviour product
• Act as a s a clearing house for the media fraternity by providing information on prevention of childhood obesity, physical activity and healthy food environments
• Create and maintain the social media forums for childhood obesity discussions
• Offer expertise on development of outreach and promotional strategies for activities supporting the objectives, and mission of the proposed program (Dignan & Carr, 1987).

The business

These stakeholders are significant because they will perform the following activities to support the proposed interventions:

• Engage the youth, faith, community, public and grassroots organizations in advocating and supporting for environmental changes and healthy policy. For instance, the food stores and supermarkets will be expected to make their commitment in providing good nutrition in schools and me their outlets. For these programs. The businesses will collaborate with the school directors for foods services, farmers, and distributors (Shortell & Richardson, 1978).

Implementation stage

During the implementation stage, much effort will be required to implement the proposed strategies and sustain the proposed intervention program of childhood obesity initiative. The partnering community residents and organizations will be required to:

1. Review the program strategies and the call for action of the proposed program across all the main areas categorised under each stakeholder.
2. Determine the proposed strategies they are implementing currently and identify new strategies from the ones proposed that they can implement
3. Become partners to the proposed health program
4. Make a commitment of adopting the new proposed interventions and strategies
5. Work with other individuals and organizations across and within their stakeholder areas to coordinate effectively their efforts.
6. What will be required from the government?

A safe, healthy and thriving country is what defined Australia. The federal and local government will be required to embrace the four major themes that are pillars to the proposed strategies for better health and combating the scourge of childhood obesity. These themes include:

1. Building a better system through health services provision that maximise on the quality, focuses on results and eliminates wastes
2. Supporting choices that are healthy by empowering the citizens to take responsibility and action for their health and for their families
3. Pursuing environmental and policy changes for communities that are healthy to make it easier for the citizens to make choices that are healthy
4. Changing organizational culture in organizations to support health outcomes that are positive (Kane, 1993).

The government will also be required during the implementation stage to establish a program for implementing evidence based initiatives impacting environmental, policy and system changes to prevent obesity and also minimize chronic disease burden in the country. These initiatives will include:

Physical activity

• Healthy transportation promotion which includes biking and walking backed up by safe and accessible public transit
• Provision of policy direction supporting co-benefits between climate change, transportation development, climate change and public health
• Integration of public health considerations into transportation and land use modelling tools and planning documents
• Promotion of safe and accessible places for physical activity
• Increasing of physical activity opportunities after and before school programs (Green, Kreuter & Green, 2005).

Nutrition

• Increasing access to locally grown and healthy foods in schools, homes and other locations
• Developing a regional policy for food systems and Supporting other strategies for food systems benefiting the local systems of agriculture and the health of entire community
• Increasing the numbers of markets for farmers that are participating with programs for nutrition assistance
• Developing and expanding school and community gardens through easing processes of permitting and encouraging agreements for joint use
• Supporting expansion for worksites lactation policies
• Expanding participation in summer and school feeding programs for children (Issel, 2009).

How the project will be evaluated

This program has an evaluation plan that will provide a continuous feedback. The evaluation plan will include evaluative efforts at different levels: organizational and leadership, Work of each of the stakeholders, and outcomes. The evaluating plan will address multiple levels outcomes measurement, which includes:

• Body Mass Index (BMI) that will measure direct outcomes
• Proximal outcomes of the policy, environmental and behavioural changes
• Process evaluation measurements that will be focused on stakeholders activates and outputs
• Body Mass Index Measurement

The program agreed with the BMI scientific evidence that is a reliable measure (for surveillance not for diagnosis) of progression of childhood weight status over a period of time, especially on the basis of a population, and recognizing the child weight final outcome within the guidelines recommended as a viable approach to measure attempts in impacting childhood obesity for a long period of time (Atkins, 2003).

Proximal outcomes

This program initiative will work with the local governments and other partners in developing a set of community health indicators. The program will use available health statistics of geographic areas to describe environmental characteristics that the initiative can apply in setting priorities and also in measuring progress. The program will use comparative data and visual maps so that the communities can see their environmental characteristics as well as over time changes. This decision of selecting and measuring specific health indicators in a community will be dependent on the resources available for collection, analysis and for interpretation.

The evaluation plan will include selecting “sentinel” communities within the state to allow the program to concentrate on the strategic efforts. This will make it feasible for conducting intensive measurements and analysis. Selection of the sentinel communities will offer an opportunity for testing strategies, evaluating measures and disseminating the information learned through evaluation. Additionally, using sentinel communities will allow the program initiative to closely work with the people to ensure that measures that are meaningful are employed and collected data are shared and become a good platform for the future strategies that will impact childhood obesity (Dignan & Carr, 1987).

Process evaluation measurements of Stakeholders activities

Systematic evaluation of stakeholder’s activities will be significant to ongoing sustainability of the project. It will be only through this evaluation that the project funders, partners and members of the community will be able to assess objectively what has been accomplished, which areas need to be addressed, and what can be sustained

Evaluation will also allow the stakeholders domain to make a reflection about their challenges and successes and refocus their effort as required. Stakeholders activities evaluation will include a two-tier process involving data integration that will be derived from work plan updates of the stakeholders, and enhanced evaluation of some selected stakeholder activities to give a more detailed analysis of specific activates and work plans (Shortell & Richardson, 1978).

Sustainability of the project

To ensure the project is sustainable, evaluation of stakeholder activities will be paramount. Moreover, the project will utilize the available resources and the efforts of the volunteers both in evaluation and academic experts as well as consultants. The project also recognize that a robust exercise and evaluation will need a defined budgetary commitment and responsibility to implement it and to be sustainable. Therefore, the project will request its partners and grants to implement and evaluate specific plan components (Kane, 1993).

Conclusion

In conclusion, the paper presented a detailed plan that covered the planning stage, key stakeholders, the implementation stage, evaluation plan and how the project will be sustained. Key requirements for planning are stakeholders on board, infrastructure and funds for budgeting. The key stakeholders for the project will include government, schools, religious community, families, business, and media among others. The implementation of the project will implemented by both the people, organizations and individual stakeholders. The evaluation plan will comprise of Bony Mass Index (BMI), proximal outcomes of the policy, environmental and behavioural changes, and process evaluation measurements. For the project to be sustainable, process evaluation and ensuring funds are available will be paramount.

References

Atkins, R. C. (2003). Atkins for life: The complete controlled carb program for permanent weight loss and good health. New York: St. Martins Press.

Dignan, M. B., Carr, P. A., & Dignan, M. B. (1987). Program planning for health education and health promotion. Philadelphia: Lea & Febiger.

Green, L. W., Kreuter, M. W., & Green, L. W. (2005). Health program planning: An educational and ecological approach. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Issel, L. M. (2009). Health program planning and evaluation: A practical and systematic approach for community health. Sudbury, Mass: Jones and Bartlett Publishers.

Kane, W. (1993). Step by step to comprehensive school health: The program planning guide. Santa Cruz, Calif. (P.O. Box 1830, Santa Cruz 95061-1830: ETR Associates.

Shortell, S. M., & Richardson, W. C. (1978). Health program evaluation. Saint Louis: Mosby.

Herman Bailey

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