Part of the SNAP-Ed Strategies & Interventions Toolkit.*
Healthy Steps to Freedom (HSF) is a direct education health, nutrition, and body image program designed to augment existing broad-based drug treatment and community education programs for women under correctional supervision for substance use/misuse. HSF intervenes through self-enrollment, court ordered programs and the corrections system. While the long-term goal of HSF is to reduce recidivism and attrition for females under correctional supervision, the more immediate short-term goal is to teach healthy lifestyles as an alternative approach to substance use/misuse including nutrition, diet quality, balanced meals, physical activity, family mealtimes, reading food labels, increased fruit and vegetable consumption, and positive self-esteem.
A peer-reviewed study by Lindsay et al (2012) documented statistically significant positive changes in 12-week program participants. A 2012 needs assessment demonstrated ongoing need for the program, and data from 2018 10-week revision demonstrated similar results as the 12-week program.
Materials available at no cost. Will provide a link to order curriculum via the Box (very large). Will track users.
*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.