DAY CARE SURVEY ADMINISTRATION FOR NHPS HEALTHY PRACTICE STUDY
Roberta Gealt, Principal Investigator
Katherine Ware, Project Coordinators
Initiated: 2010
Funding Source:
Nemours Health and Prevention Services
Project Summary:
In response to the health care community’s concerns about increasing levels of childhood obesity, Nemours Health and Prevention Services (NHPS) has designed and implemented interventions aimed at creating policy and practice changes among Early Care and Education Providers to support and encourage healthy eating and physical activity among younger children in child care settings.
To evaluate the impact of NHPS’ interventions at the child care provider level, it is necessary to assess the congruence, or degree of agreement, between awareness, policies, and practices among child care providers. It is believed that those centers that have been working with NHPS will have a much higher congruence between awareness, policies, and practices than those that have not been reached through one or more of NHPS’ child care interventions.
NHPS has contracted with the Center for Drug and Alcohol Studies (CDAS) at the University of Delaware (UD) to administer the Delaware Child Care Provider Surveys during the fall of 2011. In 2011, surveys will be provided directly to participants (day care directors and teachers) using a scheduled face-to-face visit approach. In addition, Parent Surveys will be distributed to parents who will provide information about parent inclusion in Healthy Practice information. For Family Child Care, CDAS will be mailing surveys to providers.
The results will assist NHPS in understanding where to concentrate programmatic work in the future by determining the extent that awareness, policies, and practices are inter-related.