- (Public Value) UCANR: Promoting healthy people and communities
- Author: Saoimanu Sope
About 15 years ago, Mary Maser saw an ad in the classified section of her local newspaper for a job opening with the Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program serving San Diego County. As a community education specialist with EFNEP, she has provided nutrition lessons for thousands of Spanish-speaking residents until her retirement on July 1.
Maser, who is of Mexican descent and fluent in Spanish, enjoyed working with the Spanish-speaking community in San Diego because it kept her connected to her roots. Before joining University of California Cooperative Extension, Maser taught factory workers English and served as an interpreter in the medical field.
“I've had a lot of different jobs and being fluent in Spanish has helped me in my line of work tremendously,” she said.
“We offer the EFNEP courses in English and Spanish, but a majority of my students were Spanish speakers,” recalled Maser, who taught nutrition education and healthy living practices to adults. Making her students feel as comfortable as possible was important to Maser.
Based on her time with EFNEP, Maser said that she is most proud of her students' dedication.
“I was impressed with the number of students who showed up to every class, wanting to learn, even during the pandemic,” Maser said. When the COVID-19 shelter-in-place mandate hit California, Maser said she started teaching students over the phone.
“I had one student who was spending quality time with family in Tahoe, and I told her that it was okay for us to postpone class,” Maser said. “But she insisted and said she wanted to do it, so we did.”
Maser was the only community education specialist who worked in San Diego's North County. For years, she participated in community events like the Fallbrook Clinic Health Fair, promoting EFNEP and connecting with residents. In 2019, she was recognized by Senator Brian Jones for her work with EFNEP and continued efforts teaching healthy living.
“Many of my students didn't speak English well or at all and had varying levels of education. For some, it was the first class they ever took in their life,” said Maser. “There's a lot of fear and stress they deal with on a daily basis, but it never stopped them from coming to class,” she added, emphasizing how much she admires her students' tenacity to learn.
Shirley Salado, UCCE nutrition supervisor for EFNEP in San Diego County, described Maser as a positive, respectful and considerate teammate. “Mary loved to teach nutrition and fondly cared for the Hispanic community. She was so attentive to her participants, ensuring nutrition knowledge was clearly presented to help families make better healthy choices for their well-being,” Salado said.
In her retirement, Maser is looking forward to traveling and learning another language. “I think Italian would be the easiest for me to learn, and I know a little bit of Portuguese, but I'm also interested in French,” she said.
Maser will also be using retirement to practice what she has preached for so many years, by focusing on her health and wellness.
- Author: Mike Hsu
John Karlik, UC Cooperative Extension advisor in Kern County for environmental horticulture and environmental science, will retire July 1. Karlik began his work in Kern County in 1984 with an emphasis on the commercial rose plant industry and local horticulture outreach.
Karlik's teaching activities included five levels of 12- to 15-week horticulture education classes offered in three locations in Kern County, usually two or three classes held each year. For the past 25 years, he has collaborated with Darrell Feil, co-owner of Abate-a-Weed in Bakersfield, to hold landscape management seminars that connect community members with experts on a wide range of topics.
“What I love about John is a couple of things: first, his knowledge base is amazing – he's a treasure of Kern County, for what he's done education-wise,” Feil said. “And second, he has a very active mind – and so many people benefit from that in our community.”
Karlik expanded his teaching to include 10 horticulture study tours to gardens and landscapes of Europe and Asia, and the photographs from those visits enhanced his outreach and contributed to his chapters on landscape design in the Arizona and UC Master Gardener Handbooks.
He earned his B.S. in soil science from the University of Minnesota and M.S. in horticulture from Michigan State University.
Taking advantage of UC Agriculture and Natural Resources' flexibility and sabbatical leave, he completed a doctorate at UCLA in Environmental Science and Engineering, and changed his research focus to air-quality-related projects. That led to a lecture series on atmospheric science and policy, including climate change, which Karlik offered annually for 15 years as a visiting professor at Central European University in Budapest, and resulting in a service award from that institution.
In recent years, he led four tours to study ecosystem response in the still-radioactive Exclusion Zone at Chernobyl, Ukraine, site of the world's worst nuclear accident.
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Karlik shifted from in-person classes and offered 75 hour-long Zoom presentations on horticulture, landscape design, climate change and environmental science topics, finding an audience in California and in other states.
Karlik also has held a variety of positions in ANR committees, including Academic Assembly Council and the Communications Advisory Board.
“I especially appreciate the many collegial relationships I have within UCCE, ANR, and on several campuses,” Karlik said. “Authorship on many publications reflects those relationships.”
In retirement, Karlik expects to offer assistance at the UCCE office in Kern County and as an editor for a forthcoming ANR book. He intends to pursue interests in instrumental music and the study of languages.
“We've been really blessed to have a guy like John around,” Feil said.
- Author: Mike Hsu
During nearly 20 years at UC Agriculture and Natural Resources, Lori Renstrom has embodied the spirit of the organization: a dedication to service and a roll-up-your-sleeves, whatever-it-takes ethic.
“It's true for most people at ANR – especially in a team kind of environment,” said Renstrom, the office manager at UC Cooperative Extension in San Diego since 2010. “People just seem to pitch in and get things done. It needs to be done, and so it gets done.”
As she gets ready to retire on July 1, Renstrom can look back on a whole lot of “done” in her vital administrative role – including transitioning all personnel from San Diego County support staff to UC employee status, moving the entire operation to a new building when their former one was demolished, and opening a satellite office in Escondido, in the north part of the county.
“They were just really heartfelt letters, so it was just really rewarding,” Renstrom recalled. “You feel like you're really doing something for the community, and the girls were so appreciative.”
Her passion for helping young people first brought Renstrom to UCCE San Diego in 2003, when she served as program manager for Off to a Good Start, under First 5 California, a statewide movement to promote early childhood development.
The program, funded for 8½ years at UCCE San Diego, offered educational opportunities and resources to families and local organizations – especially in the predominantly Hispanic communities of the South Bay – to assist them in providing the best environment for learning and growth for their children.
“We literally helped thousands of parents really understand that they are their child's first and most important teacher,” Renstrom said.
Renstrom's commitment to strengthening communities also extended to UC ANR itself. In 2014, she attended a workshop that revealed the results of a UC-wide work environment survey, as well as the challenges and opportunities across the system. For UC ANR, it was the need for a representative body for nonrepresented staff.
“Being here in San Diego, I would get UC San Diego's Staff Assembly bulletin; we were quote-unquote ‘members' of UCSD Staff Assembly and so I was like, ‘Why don't we have one?'” said Renstrom.
Responding to Vice President for Agriculture and Natural Resources Glenda Humiston's call for volunteers, Renstrom played an instrumental role in defining the function, structure and bylaws of the nascent Staff Assembly Council. She also served as treasurer for its first two years, and was UC ANR's first senior delegate to the Council of University of California Staff Assemblies.
In addition to providing support for ANR employees, Staff Assembly Council was invaluable in making more people across UC aware of the organization's work throughout the state, Renstrom said.
“Not only are we connected throughout the state for ANR, we're now being connected with all the UC campuses, which is amazing…it kind of starts connecting dots for people,” she explained.
Another original member of ANR Staff Assembly Council, Nikolai Schweitzer, said that Renstrom has been invaluable in a variety of roles during the first seven years of the body's history.
“Lori's leadership skills with creating, developing and managing the Staff Assembly Ambassador program, the Wellness Program and the 2018 Statewide ANR Conference Staff Assembly events have been unparalleled,” said Schweitzer, agriculture supervisor at UC Sierra Foothill Research and Extension Center. “Lori's dedication and service to UC ANR Staff Assembly is the reason for its successes and her contributions will be missed.”
In retirement, Renstrom aims to tackle home improvement projects, read to kids at the local library, and travel with family, friends and “active senior groups.” And, befitting her personality and career, she will not be joining those tours where participants passively watch the world go by.
“I don't want to ride a bus and just look at things through the bus window,” she said with a laugh.
- Author: Shannon A Klisch
- Author: Karina Macias
- Author: Tammy J. McMurdo
- Author: Teresa Rios-Spicer
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To be successful, CalFresh Healthy Living, UCCE (CFHL, UCCE) community education staff require a wide variety of skills and expertise in topics ranging from community nutrition, classroom management, and growing food, to conducting needs assessments and youth and community engagement. Onboarding new staff or supporting the professional development of experienced educators can be challenging since new staff may not be fully aware of the skills required, and experienced staff may not be fully aware of areas where growth and development are needed.
To address these issues, we convened a working group of CFHL, UC and CFHL, UCCE staff and academics from across the state to develop the Community Education Specialist Self-Assessment Tool (CESSAT). The CESSAT is a tool for supervisors to use in collaboration with community educators to self-evaluate current knowledge and skills and identify areas for professional development. This tool can be used with new hires and/or experienced educators to:
1) identify gaps in knowledge and skills and prioritize training accordingly
2) identify areas where growth or development is needed
3) inform the probationary and/or performance review process
4) identify opportunities for peer-to-peer support and informal mentoring
Over the course of 16 months, the workgroup met to review existing tools for community and nutrition educators, develop the skill and competency areas the tool should cover, draft self- assessment questions for each skill area, and divide skill areas between entry level and advanced. Once we had a complete working draft, we sent the CESSAT to subject matter experts in each of the skill areas for review and feedback. The current draft of the CESSAT reflects the input received from multiple partners and stakeholders.
We launched the CESSAT during a Feb. 24, 2022, webinar with CFHL, UCCE supervisors, managers and academics. We will collect feedback from this cohort of professionals as well as other program supervisors over the next six months. We plan to revise the CESSAT as needed to reflect the evolving nature of community education competencies and as additional skill areas are requested.
The CESSAT, if used broadly, can support the development of a highly skilled workforce, and help to identify training needs across the state. Our goal is that the CESSAT will support supervisors with access to a targeted self-assessment that they can use with new and experienced educators to support the training and development needs of every CalFresh Healthy Living program.
To access the CESSAT, click on this link: https://ucdavis.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_2tyQ5AeYoaLpbFk. You will be asked for your contact information so that we can follow-up with a short feedback survey.
- Author: Andra Nicoli
CalFresh Healthy Living, UC and its UC Cooperative Extension community educators work in schools and community settings to give low-income children and families the opportunities and resources they need to eat right, stay active and lead healthy lives.
As California's unemployment rate rises due to COVID-19, their efforts have never been more important, nor more challenging, but how do you provide in-person services during a pandemic?
“We pivot,” said Kamaljeet Khaira, director of CalFresh Healthy Living, UC. “To meet the new remote learning needs of schools and communities, we shifted our nutrition, physical activity and garden-based education interventions to online platforms. We are transforming the delivery method of 19 different curricula.”
CalFresh Healthy Living, UC is based at UC Davis in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. It is one of four California agencies funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to provide educational services to low-income Californians eligible for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as food stamps. It is the largest nutrition education program in the nation.
Local offices of CalFresh Healthy Living, UC are part of UC Agriculture and Natural Resources' Cooperative Extension network. CalFresh Healthy Living, UC administers the program in 32 counties through local offices that provide evidence-based, nutrition programs combined with physical activity and policy, systems and environmental change initiatives. Led by educators, volunteers, nonprofit organizations and state and local agencies, the services are comprehensive in nature to stimulate sustainable change.
Before COVID-19, that meant meeting at schools and with families and adults, educating and inspiring them to reach for fresh produce and other nutritional foods. With the help of teachers, CalFresh Healthy Living, UC brought nutrition education to the classroom and encouraged schools to develop “smart” lunchrooms that put fresh food and beverages front and center. They spearheaded community and school-based gardens where children and parents worked together to plant, harvest and prepare nutritious meals. They also offered training in physical activity through the Coordinated Approach to Child Health (CATCH) curricula, such as creating playground stencils to help students build a foundation for a lifetime of active living.
“When you start early, children get accustomed to physical activity, as well as food and drinks with less sodium and sugar, and this has the potential to initiate a lifetime of healthy choices,” said Andra Nicoli, strategic initiatives program and policy analyst with CalFresh Healthy Living, UC. “We try to surround children in an environment of healthy living. There are many spokes on the wheel to improving a child's health, and we work to address them.”
Starting this fall, CalFresh Healthy Living, UC will switch to a hybrid approach to learning. When they can meet in person with participants using masks and social distancing, they will. In addition, much of their training will be available online to those in California who are SNAP-eligible. This requires looking at program delivery and collecting feedback for continuous quality improvement in a new way.
“We're designing online curricula delivery models to re-engage students using a fresh approach, like offering interactive physical activity breaks and mindful moments with instructive audio-visuals,” said Tammy McMurdo, who leads curricula and direct education for CalFresh Healthy Living, UC. “Bringing online content right into students' homes makes it available to parents, grandparents and everyone living there, which is important to sustaining healthy eating practices.”
Some examples of new remote learning include:
- More than 60 online lessons are under development for children prekindergarten through eighth grade that emphasize healthy eating, active living and gardening. For example, in Imperial County, CalFresh Healthy Living, UCCE collaborated with Carmen Hernandez, a third- and fourth-grade teacher at De Anza Magnet Elementary School, to pilot a 30-minute remote lesson of My Amazing Body that includes book reading, an interactive PowerPoint, a physical activity break, and a lesson discussion via Zoom. “It was something different and the students were engaged,” Hernandez said. “We really enjoyed it!”
- CalFresh Healthy Living, UCCE county programs are developing the online delivery of five adult curricula, including the UC-developed Plan, Shop, Save and Cook and Making Every Dollar Count that provide food resource management tips, as well as ideas for how to stay active and feed your family healthy food on a limited budget. These lessons are particularly valuable at this time of high unemployment.
“We're finding new ways to connect and engage with the children and families of California,” Khaira explained. “Along with our many partners, we continue to strive for a California where everyone is nourished, active and healthy.”
You can learn more about CalFresh Healthy Living programs at http://calfresh.dss.ca.gov/healthyliving/home.
