Nutrition Standards For Infants and Young Children can be Implemented by Family Child Care Home Providers

Abstract

The study evaluated an educational intervention with family child care home (FCCH) providers to implement nutrition standards. A convenience sample of licensed California FCCH providers (n = 30) attended a 2-hour, in-person group training in English or Spanish on nutrition standards for infants and children aged 1 to 5 years. Provider surveys and researcher observations during meals/snacks were conducted pre- and 3 months post-intervention. Providers rated the training as excellent (average score of 4.9 on a scale of 1-5). Adherence, assessed by survey and observation and compared over time using paired t-tests, increased from an average of 36% pre-intervention to 44% post-intervention ( P = .06) of providers (n = 12) for infant standards and from 59% to 68% ( P < .001) of providers (n = 30) for child standards. One-third (39%) of providers rated infant standards and 19% of providers rated child standards as difficult to implement. Nutrition standards can be implemented by FCCH providers after an educational intervention; a larger study is warranted with a representative group of providers.

Online training for child care providers teaches child nutrition in English and Spanish

“…To address the training needs of FCCH providers, a multi-disciplinary, bilingual team of nutrition and health experts developed an in-person workshop in English and Spanish to share best practices on what and how to feed young children (Ritchie et al 2020(Ritchie et al , 2021. Given that one in 10 FCCH providers in California prefer to speak only Spanish and about one-quarter prefer Spanish in addition to English, a Spanish-language training was essential (Whitebook et al 2006).…”

“…Given that one in 10 FCCH providers in California prefer to speak only Spanish and about one-quarter prefer Spanish in addition to English, a Spanish-language training was essential (Whitebook et al 2006). The team conducted a three-month pilot study of the workshop and found that, although the FCCH providers adopted many of the recommended feeding practices (Box 1), attending the workshop was challenging due to providers' busy schedules and transportation needs (Ritchie et al 2020(Ritchie et al , 2021. To improve accessibility and sustainability, the workshop content was converted to an interactive, online training with a digital teacher avatar named "Laura," which included videos, games and quizzes.…”