Promising Practice

Get Healthy Together: WIC Staff and Clients Moving Toward Healthier Lifestyles

State/Jurisdiction: New Mexico
Setting: Clinical
Population: Families & Caregivers Medical & Public Health Professionals
Topic Area: Health Promotion & Communication Nutrition & Physical Activity Workforce Development
NPMs:

This practice is no longer being implemented. Unfortunately, there is no contact information available for this practice. Counseling parents of overweight children is a sensitive issue that has been reported to be difficult for many health professionals. The Get Healthy Together (GHT) project involved an 18-month intervention that provided skills training and new tools to Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) program staff and a staff wellness program to improve the physical self-concept and functioning of WIC employees. All WIC staff from the 48 WIC clinics in New Mexico participated in this study. The design used random assignment to intervention or control condition. Staff participating in the Get Healthy Together project reported improved confidence in their ability to counsel parents of overweight children and improved counseling skills related to health behaviors. Use of the innovative tools provided visual aids that helped parents understand the health implications of their child's weight without the parents becoming defensive. These tools are publicly available in English and Spanish on the WIC Works Sharing Gallery (website: http://www.nal.usda.gov/wicworks/Sharing_Center/gallery/healthytogether.html).


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Implementation Handout
Final Report


CONTACT INFORMATION
ILSI Research Foundation
Debra Kibbe
dkibbe@gsu.edu

Practice Website