Submission Type: Practice-Based
Final Rating: Best Practice
Date Submitted: Fall 2022
Focus Area: Healthy Environments and Relationships
Focus Population: Children, Teachers, Owners, Caregivers, Guardians, Parents
Contact Information:
Quisha Beardsley
Executive Director
405-525-3111
Rainbow Fleet Child Care Resource & Referral
1105 NW 45th St, Oklahoma City, OK 73118
HOME - Rainbow Fleet Child Care Resource and Referral
Goals and Outcomes:
Rainbow Fleet Family Child Care Healthy Bodies, Healthy Minds program intends to improve the quality of life, especially for children receiving childcare subsidies. Through our intention to serve families, our goal is to partner with providers, parents and children to remove barriers so that every child has a greater understanding of nutrition and physical activity. By enhancing access to nutritional foods and comprehensive training we expect obesity and tobacco use rates to decline. We will serve a total of 216 Family Child Care Homes, with a direct impact on approximately 1,712 children, not to mention the residual impact of additional family members. We will collect pre-program data and post-program data from each participating location and have scores to compare for each site. We will also have a selfassessment/evaluation for each program to complete at the end of their participation. This will allow us to measure and track the impact of increased physical activity, nutritious foods, self-regulation and coping, and the number of children attending well child visits with a trusted Pediatrician.
We seek to increase the number of tobacco-free childcare homes by providing training and education to providers and parents. This will be accomplished by enhancing the nutrition of the foods served, prepared, and grown at the child-care home. Tobacco-free environments are important to eliminate secondhand smoke, e-cigarette aerosol, and reduce thirdhand smoke for children. Additionally, it reduces tobacco related disease and death and motivates smokers to quit. This has a profound opportunity to reduce tobacco use initiation among youth. In modeling our approach after Tobacco Free Wichita and their success through “Clean Air, Child Care” we intend to partner with the City of Oklahoma City to launch this initiative. Providing opportunities for public recognition of the childcare homes committed to the long-term health of our community will aide in garnering support and participation in the program.
Brief Summary:
Our target audience is Family Child Care Homes (FCCH) in Oklahoma county, with particular attention to zip code 73111. According to the Oklahoma State Department of Healthy Vital Records from 2013-2015, there’s an 18-year gap in life expectancy across different city zip codes. We strongly believe that by addressing access, training, and services to nutrition and physical activity in childcare homes, we can begin to address the 18-year gap in life expectancy. Rainbow Fleet will recruit 72 FCCH’s to participate in the program annually for a period of three years. With a starting point in zip code area 73111, we will branch out to all surrounding areas in Oklahoma County until we reach a total of 216 Family Child Care Homes at the conclusion of three years. There are currently 301 family childcare homes in Oklahoma County.
This 3-year program would impact approximately 1,712 children and 216 providers, not to mention the residual impact of additional family members. Health issues facing the targeted demographics are chronic lower respiratory disease, heart disease, obesity, adverse childhood experiences, increased levels of smoking among high schoolers, lack of physical activity, and an absence of routine checkups with a primary care physician. (Oklahoma State Department of Health, State of the State’s Health Report, 2/26/2019) Through our targeted efforts we will be able to provide resources and intensive training to address increased physical activity, nutritious meals, and attempt to connect them with a local pediatrician for routine well-care visits.
Healthy Bodies, Healthy Minds: Nutrition Workshops for Teachers | SNAP-Ed