Monthly Archives: November 2011

Linking School Nutrition and Community in Hartford, CT

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Hi all! My name is Dawn Crayco. Since last June, I have been working on my practicum in Connecticut with the Hartford School Food Service Department. I was drawn to this type of experience because my professional public health experience thus far has been primarily in community organizing and advocacy around hunger and food insecurity. While this work is certainly related to school food, I’ve been relatively hands off from the day to day work and challenges of increasing good nutrition for children through schools.

My practicum has included working with the Hartford Food Service Director to develop a system to integrate new and healthy foods into her menu that are accepted and enjoyed by the various food cultures throughout the city- and are also affordable for the department. This includes taste-testing new foods with students so they can become familiar with new foods and with kitchen managers at schools for production purposes. This practicum, thus far, has been an eye-opening experience into the many regulatory issues and pressures school food service operations encounter in their day to day work.

By being an extra hand, I’ve able to start the process of identifying goals and processes for the overall food program to seamlessly add new, healthy foods that have been tried, recognized, and accepted by students. The grand finale will come next spring when the Director and I are able to pull together the first Hartford Community School Food Show (I’m sure it will have a different name by then). The event will be open to the community, specifically parents and children, who will learn about quality of Hartford’s school food (for Jamie Oliver followers), taste and weigh-in on potential menu items, and learn about USDA’s MyPlate and how the school breakfast, lunch, and now supper programs in Hartford help children get the adequate nutrition they need to learn and grow at school in Hartford.

These past months have been about taking the necessary steps and developing resources needed to pull off a successful event specific to the Hartford school community. I think the Director and I were a little naïve in thinking we could put this together in a few months. An event like this, done properly, takes time and ground work to a.) sell the case for the need b.) get administrative buy-in c.) test the concept so we know it can work in Hartford and d.) build community partners.

I’ll be posting again to talk about what steps we’ve taken thus far! In the meantime, here is a link to a great radio interview with my practicum supervisor on our local WNPR. The segment is entitled “Where We Live: What’s for Lunch?” and it covers some information about the new school meal guidelines.
Where We Live: What’s for Lunch?

Nutrition Science Research Group at NCI

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Nutrition Science Research Group at the Division of Cancer Prevention of the National Cancer Insitute.

Currently, I am doing my practicum with this group. It is broken down to two parts: getting nurses involved with their nutritional webinars and writing a review of literature regarding this subject. It has been very challenging.

Jolie’s Practicum – Worksite Wellness

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Hi Everyone,
I thought I would take the time to report in about my practicum experience thus far. I have been doing an eight week nutrition/fitness worksite wellness program at the school, Carrabassett Valley Academy, where I work. I have been learning a lot and really enjoying the experience. My supervisor is the school nurse and my mentor is the marketing director who previously worked as a wellness coach.The first thing that I did was a needs assessment. I gathered information from participants of the program before implementing any of the actual work that I have been doing. What I came to find was that of the 18 employees participating in the wellness group, about half of the group was joining in to learn, gather motivation and to be be inspired with the intent of weight loss. The other half was wanting sports nutrition information for performance related goals. I also have several participants that are involved specifically for disease prevention such as prevention of osteoporosis.

Another thing we initially offered were blood pressure checks during the first week to see if there were any red flags and also for those that wanted it as baseline information. I must say that the majority of the group that I am working with are healthy individuals, none the less, they all have had reason for participating.So what am I doing now, I have been sending a daily healthy tip/topic of the day via email. This has been fun. I have received a lot of positive feedback from this. The tips have been things such as inspirational quotes, recipe ideas, exercise suggestions, tips about specific nutrients, hydration and sleep as well as many other things.

I have lead weekly group walks, field workouts, yoga sessions and formed a running group. I have done two lunch and learns. One was on vitamins needs for athletes and the other was on the importance of breakfast, healthy snacks and wholesome dinners. We did a recipe swap at this lunch and learn which was a hit. I also have done two newsletters. One on sports nutrition and the other on eating for good health and the environment.

Lastly, I have been meeting with participants one-on-one to set goals, do measurements, weigh-ins and to discuss personal concerns regarding their nutrition. This has been quite an opportunity for me. I have really been enjoying this aspect of the practicum. To start the process, we used Fit Day as an online resource for tracking foods. I had everyone do a three day diet record. This was a great way for me to learn about each participant’s individual areas of concern as well as successes. Some have continued to use the tracking tool.

I have been impressed with the dedication of some of the participants and not so with others. One thing that I am learning is that it is difficult to keep participants motivated with sticking to their goals particularly in a work setting. I say this because the most common excuse that I am getting is that they have too much work to get to on any given day. This lesson has also been valuable.

All and all, I am very much enjoying my work experience and learning a lot. Please feel free to ask me questions or to comment.