Healthy Children, Healthy Families: Parents making a difference!

Part of the SNAP-Ed Strategies & Interventions Toolkit.* The Healthy Children, Healthy Families: Parents making a difference! (HCHF) is an 8-week intervention designed to increase healthy eating and physical activity and to reduce screen time. HCHF integrates parenting and nutrition education and is delivered to parents and caregivers of children 3 to 12 years old. HCHF uses a learner-centered dialogue approach, based on the Social Cognitive Theory, to engage participants in discussions and hands-on activities. This method aims to introduce behaviors (a.k.a. Paths to Success) most likely to prevent unhealthy weight gain and chronic disease, along with relevant parenting skills (a.k.a. Keys to Success) to help participants in supporting their families’ with these behavior changes. Sessions are scripted to ensure ease of delivery and are structured using the 4A Dialogue Approach to increase participant engagement. Each of the 8 sessions focuses on a specific behavior, and provides participants an opportunity to learn and apply one or more new parenting skills. These sessions are once per week and last 1.5 hours. Additionally, each session includes tasting a healthy recipe and an “active play break” to help parents practice activities they can take home and do with their children.