Thank yo to everyone who attended my live practicum presentation.  I received great feedback and my favorite – “food for thought”!  Sometimes when you are so caught up in your work, you lose sight of what you’ve done, what you’ve learned, and what to do next.  I had expressed disappointment in not having favorable survey results for offering nutrition services at the YWCA.  I failed to appreciate how knowledgeable and well off the general membership was in regards to nutrition – and that should be celebrated!!!  And the results further strengthen what we already know – well-educated women at health clubs already tend to have healthier attitudes and behaviors in regard to nutrition.

While I didn’t discuss this during my presentation, part of the reasoning for conducting this survey was to garner evidence to support the development of an MNT program at the Y…and to create a new position for an RD (that maybe I could fill!).  It doesn’t seem financially feasible for this to occur at this time, but at least a part-time position can be considered for the Encore group.  The next steps are to present these data to the director and the board and see what they think.  For me, working at the Y would fulfill many personal and professional goals and encompass all that I love to do – nutrition, fitness, and public health.

I have never used Survey Monkey before but purchased a month’s subscription for my practicum.  It is VERY user friendly to those of you who have never used it.  I completed my 20 question survey this weekend and met with my site coordinator today in 70 degree New England weather, sipping iced coffee, and overlooking the mighty Merrimack River (not bad, huh?).  She was very pleased with my progress and the questions I created – yay! – and we had a nice discussion on survey bias.

We’re using Constant Contact to send out an e-blast to our membership tomorrow and are hoping for a high response rate (goal:  n=500 completed surveys).  We have set short and long term goals for follow-up and have identified ways to reach unopened emails or non-completed surveys; we are also offering a completion incentive and have identified marketing strategies to reach a larger population so we can obtain valid results and a realistic insight into the community’s nutrition needs and knowledge.  We hope to have data to review by the end of June with a goal of analyzing data in July.

We are working on another survey to a sub-population about which I’ll be speaking during my article critique tomorrow night in 794A.  All very exciting stuff.

First, thank you Drs. C + P as well as Jennifer for commenting on my post and offering support and words of encouragement.  I can proudly say I had a productive meeting with my site coordinator this afternoon.  We have identified action items with both short and long term goals.  We are excited about the potential this project will bring to future projects as well as the current programs already in place.  I am also excited to be exposed to two new tools – Survey Monkey (I’ve only taken these surveys, not created one myself that will be sent out to 3,000 people!) and DropBox (check it out the link, it’s pretty cool).  We scheduled two follow-up meetings as well as set a deadline for submission, which – I might add – is coming up quickly.  I’m feeling good that I have things to do; now I just have to get busy doing them!

I must begrudgingly say I feel like a slacker.  I have had a conceptual plan for my practicum for months.  However, it is slow in coming to fruition.  I also admit that my personal and professional lives are interfering with my academic progression.  Additionally, my attempts to meet with my community mentor have been sidelined by illnesses, family set-backs, and holidays.  I was supposed to meet with my preceptor yesterday and start my progress this weekend; however, that meeting has been pushed back to early next week.  So at this point I am anxious to begin, nervous I’ll fall behind, and unsure of how this will all play out.   But, despite my worries, I do think it will be a great experience and I look foward to actually starting the process!

So what exactly am I doing for my practicum?  I teach group fitness classes at the local YWCA and have been asked – as a dietitian – to speak at numerous YWCA functions on nutrition.  The YWCA also has a national program called Encore, which is a fitness and support program for breast cancer survivors (active or in remission).  Therefore, they’d like me to lend my expertise and assistance with some of their programs.  The staff is interested in collecting data to better assess the effectiveness of the program and to provide efficacy data for future solicitations of funding from various donors.  Therefore, my role will be to assist in the data collection and the evaluation and interpretation of the findings.  We will also include nutrition parameters and survey the YWCA membership at large to see if offering nutritional services (such as education, counseling, public health activities), whether as part of the Encore program or as a service to the community, is a viable option for the YWCA.  In essence, I will be completing a nutrition needs assessment of the YWCA membership and then the Encore members.  The ultimate goal is to provide evidence of a need for nutritional services in the general and Encore memberships that is consistent with the their  mission and then advocate for a strong nutrition presence in the Y’s programming and community outreach initiatives. 

Here’s hoping next week is more productive than the past!