Part of the SNAP-Ed Strategies & Interventions Toolkit.*
The FoodCorps Healthy School Toolkit is a PSE change intervention designed to improve school food environments over time. The Toolkit includes a research-backed assessment tool that is used by school teams to assess healthy school food environment activities. The Toolkit also includes the Action Plan, a tool that guides school teams in setting goals and vision to improve school food environments. The Healthy School Progress Report was developed through an evaluation partnership with Columbia University’s Teachers College. It assesses the school food environment across sixteen indicator areas known to contribute to healthy eating behaviors in children, spanning hands-on nutrition education, school gardening, and food preparation experience to the culture of healthy eating in the cafeteria and throughout the school’s practices. It is expected that schools actively using these tools and seeking to implement activities that support a healthy school food environment will make incremental progress on an annual basis.
FoodCorps Healthy School Toolkit is designed for implementation in K-8 schools. Schools are a primary driver in young people’s knowledge of, attitudes about, and access to food. By creating healthy food environments, schools can start all students on a healthy path to success. The FoodCorps Healthy School Toolkit can be used by school teams in any school setting across diverse communities and geographies to create a customized vision and action plan. The Toolkit was developed, piloted, revised, and implemented through thoughtful engagement with and feedback from our service members and partners in the field.
When the FoodCorps developed the Healthy School Progress Report, they tested it with FoodCorps service members who were piloting the tool in schools. They continue to collect feedback from FoodCorps service members on an annual basis on all the tools used in the field including the FoodCorps Healthy School Toolkit along with all the components included in it such as the Healthy School Progress Report.
The primary performance measurement and outcome evaluation tool for the Toolkit is the Healthy School Progress Report. Healthy School Progress Report guides and measures changes in the physical and cultural practices that are shown to influence what kids eat within in the school environment. The Healthy School Progress Report is included in the Healthy School Toolkit.
*SNAP-Ed Strategies & Interventions: An Obesity Prevention Toolkit for States is a compilation of interventions. The toolkit was developed by USDA's Food and Nutrition Service, The Association of SNAP-Ed Nutrition Education Administrators (ASNNA), the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Center for Training and Research Translation (Center TRT), and the National Collaborative on Childhood Obesity Research (NCCOR), a partnership between the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the National Institutes for Health (NIH), the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the USDA. It is designed and updated to help state SNAP-Ed administrative and implementing agencies identify evidence-based obesity prevention programs and policy, systems, and environmental (PSE) strategies and interventions to include in their SNAP-Ed plans.