11
views
0
recommends
+1 Recommend
0 collections
    0
    shares
      • Record: found
      • Abstract: found
      • Article: found
      Is Open Access

      Testing the feasibility of a sustainable preschool obesity prevention approach: a mixed-methods service evaluation of a volunteer-led HENRY programme

      research-article

      Read this article at

      Bookmark
          There is no author summary for this article yet. Authors can add summaries to their articles on ScienceOpen to make them more accessible to a non-specialist audience.

          Abstract

          Background

          Over the last 10 years HENRY has been working to reduce and prevent child obesity by training health and early years professionals to deliver its evidence-based programme to parents. The aim and unique contribution of this study was to evaluate whether training volunteers to deliver this programme on a one-to-one basis was feasible.

          Methods

          Mixed-methods service evaluation with parent-reported pre- and post-programme outcomes and focus groups conducted with parents and volunteer facilitators. The programme consisted of 8 one-to-one sessions delivered weekly by volunteers ( n = 18) to build food and activity-related knowledge, skills, and understanding, and improve parenting efficacy, and parent and child eating and physical activity. Programmes took place at parent’s ( n = 69) home or local community venues in four London boroughs, United Kingdom. Parent-reported parenting efficacy, emotional wellbeing, eating, and physical activity data were captured, alongside parent ratings of the programme and volunteer ratings of the training. Parent and volunteer focus groups explored involvement, expectations, and experiences of the programme, training and delivery, feedback, and impact.

          Results

          Parents were mostly female, had varied ethnic backgrounds, and were often not working but well educated. There were statistically significant improvements of a medium-to-large size in parent and child emotional wellbeing, parenting efficacy, fruit and vegetable consumption, family eating and food purchasing behaviours. Parent ratings of the programme were positive and qualitative data highlighted the holistic nature of the programme, which focused on more than just food, and the relationships with volunteers as key facets. Volunteers were also mostly female, had varied ethnic backgrounds, and were often well educated, but more likely to be employed than parents. Volunteers rated the training and delivery as useful in enabling them to deliver the programme confidently and for their own wellbeing. Despite finding some sessions challenging emotionally, volunteers reported positive family lifestyle improvements by parents and children and that the experience would be useful for future employment.

          Conclusions

          It is feasible to recruit and train volunteers to deliver a structured preschool obesity prevention programme, which parents considered acceptable and enjoyable, with preliminary reports of parent and child benefits.

          Supplementary Information

          The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12889-020-10031-w.

          Related collections

          Most cited references35

          • Record: found
          • Abstract: not found
          • Article: not found

          Statistics notes: Cronbach's alpha

            Bookmark
            • Record: found
            • Abstract: found
            • Article: not found

            Achieving child survival goals: potential contribution of community health workers.

            There is renewed interest in the potential contribution of community health workers to child survival. Community health workers can undertake various tasks, including case management of childhood illnesses (eg, pneumonia, malaria, and neonatal sepsis) and delivery of preventive interventions such as immunisation, promotion of healthy behaviour, and mobilisation of communities. Several trials show substantial reductions in child mortality, particularly through case management of ill children by these types of community interventions. However, community health workers are not a panacea for weak health systems and will need focussed tasks, adequate remuneration, training, supervision, and the active involvement of the communities in which they work. The introduction of large-scale programmes for community health workers requires evaluation to document the impact on child survival and cost effectiveness and to elucidate factors associated with success and sustainability.
              Bookmark
              • Record: found
              • Abstract: not found
              • Article: not found

              Qualitative research in health care. Analysing qualitative data.

                Bookmark

                Author and article information

                Contributors
                n.howlett@herts.ac.uk
                Journal
                BMC Public Health
                BMC Public Health
                BMC Public Health
                BioMed Central (London )
                1471-2458
                6 January 2021
                6 January 2021
                2021
                : 21
                : 46
                Affiliations
                [1 ]GRID grid.5846.f, ISNI 0000 0001 2161 9644, Department of Psychology, Sport, and Geography, , University of Hertfordshire, ; College Lane, Hatfield, Herts AL10 9AB UK
                [2 ]HENRY, 8 Elm Place, Old Witney Road, Oxfordshire, OX29 4BD UK
                [3 ]Radcliffe Department of Medicine, Medical Sciences Division, University of Oxford, John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford, OX3 9DU UK
                [4 ]GRID grid.9909.9, ISNI 0000 0004 1936 8403, Leeds Institute of Health Sciences, , University of Leeds, ; Leeds, LS2 9NL UK
                Author information
                http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6502-9969
                Article
                10031
                10.1186/s12889-020-10031-w
                7789777
                33407291
                f8ae6b1a-225b-48e7-ae6a-56678bce7976
                © The Author(s) 2021

                Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver ( http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.

                History
                : 8 October 2019
                : 9 December 2020
                Funding
                Funded by: Health and Social Care Volunteering Fund
                Award ID: 2013/National/055
                Categories
                Research Article
                Custom metadata
                © The Author(s) 2021

                Public health
                henry,preschool obesity prevention,behaviour change,parent-focused,volunteers,healthy eating,mixed-methods

                Comments

                Comment on this article