- Author: Katherine Lanca
- Editor: Danielle L. Lee
- Editor: Lorrene Ritchie
Licensed family child care homes (FCCH) provide child care in individual homes, are often located in the same neighborhood as the families they serve and often provide longer hours of care at a lower cost than child care centers. New research shows that a self-paced, online nutrition training for FCCH providers has the potential to make childhood nutrition guidance more accessible and may help bridge a potential regulatory gap: licensed FCCHs in California not currently participating in the federal Child and Adult Care Food Program only receive one hour of mandatory nutrition training if licensed after 2016—leaving out nearly 30,000 providers licensed before 2016 who provide care to over 310,000 children—and are not required to offer foods and beverages that meet nutrition standards. The training—available in both English and Spanish and free of cost to California-based providers—consists of four 20-minute interactive models providing guidance on what and how to feed infants and toddlers. Child care providers reported high levels of satisfaction, as well as an intention to make changes in feeding practices, after completing a pilot-test of the online training. Findings also identified a need for culturally relevant information and a live nutrition educator to discuss the training material. The research article was published in the California Agriculture journal and authored by Danielle Lee, Ron Strochlic, and Lorrene Ritchie from the Nutrition Policy Institute, Deepa Srivastava and Marisa Neelon from the University of California's Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources, and Abbey Alkon and Victoria Keeton from UC, San Francisco and the California Childcare Health Program. The project was funded by a grant from UC ANR.
Lorrene Ritchie, director of the Nutrition Policy Institute, will serve as an ad-hoc committee member for the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine study on Complementary Feeding Interventions for Infants and Young Children under Age 2: Scoping of Promising Interventions to Implement at the Community or State-Level. The committee is tasked to conduct a scoping review and assess available information on interventions aimed at improving infant and young child feeding behaviors. The project is sponsored by the US Department of Health and Human Services – Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Additional committee members include committee chair David A. Savitz from Brown University Alpert Medical School and Frank R. Greer from the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine, Laura E. Caulfield from The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Elizabeth Yakes Jimenez from the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center, Valerie J. Flaherman from the University of California, San Francisco Institute for Health Policy Studies, Rafael Pérez-Escamilla from the Yale School of Public Health, Charlene M. Russell-Tucker from the Connecticut State Department of Education and Shannon E. Whaley from Heluna Health Public Health Foundation Enterprises-WIC.
Nutrition Policy Institute researchers were awarded three separate 18-month research grants up to $250,000 as part of the Healthy Eating Research 2021 special solicitation on COVID-19 and Socioeconomic Recovery Efforts. Lorrene Ritchie, in collaboration with co-principal investigator Susana Matias from UC Berkeley and the CACFP Roundtable, received a grant for a project titled, “Child and Adult Care Food Program: Impacts of COVID-19 Differences in Reimbursement Rates on Family Childcare Home Providers, Children, and Families”. Wendi Gosliner is serving as co-PI on a project with Juliana Cohen from Merrimack College entitled “Evaluation of Universal Free School Meals,”, and is collaborating with Lia Fernald from UC Berkeley on another project entitled “Longitudinal Study of Low-Income Families with Young Children: Assessing California Communities' Experiences with Safety Net Supports Survey (ACCESS)”. Healthy Eating Research is a national program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Only 9 grants were awarded this cycle.
Nutrition Policy Institute policy advisor Christina Hecht presented virtually at the 2021 Child and Adult Care Food Program conference. Her talk on October 19 was titled “Testing: one, two and three! AB 2370 and you” on the California law–AB 2370–that requires licensed child care centers to test for lead at every tap used for drinking or cooking. Implementation of the law was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Hecht's talk informed attendees on how to prepare for future implementation of AB 2370 and also provided a question and answer session for child care providers to share their experiences. Hecht leads the National Drinking Water Alliance, which is coordinated by NPI.
California's 2010 Healthy Beverages in Child Care Act (AB2084) specifies that only unflavored low-fat milk or nonfat milk be served to children aged 2 years or older, allows no more than 1 daily serving of 100% juice, prohibits beverages with added sweeteners, and requires that safe drinking water be readily accessible throughout the day in all licensed California (CA) child care centers and family child care homes. A state-wide survey of CA child care providers conducted in 2016 by the University of California, Nutrition Policy Institute (NPI) suggested that less than half (45%) of providers fully adhered to the beverage policy. Researchers at NPI partnered with the UCSF School of Nursing, California Childcare Health Program and UC Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources (UC ANR) Cooperative Extension (CE), with support from a UC ANR grant, to develop a brief online training in English and Spanish for providers to increase adherence with the policy. Researchers evaluated the online training, 'Healthy Beverages in Early Care and Education', combined with six months of ongoing technical assistance from CE nutrition educators. The study enrolled 65 licensed child care providers in California. Results suggest that the online training can improve providers' awareness of the policy and knowledge of healthy beverage practices; however, it may not improve providers' adherence to the policy. Further, it suggests that additional technical assistance from CE nutrition educators beyond 6-months may be required to further increase awareness, knowledge, and policy adherence. Results from the study were published in the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior on June 1, 2021. The study was conducted by NPI researchers Danielle Lee, Kaela Plank, Hannah Thompson, Christina Hecht and Lorrene Ritchie in collaboration with Marisa Neelon from UC ANR, Karina Díaz Rios from UC Merced, and Abbey Alkon from the UCSF School of Nursing. The training is available online for free in English and Spanish for California child care providers, and for $15 for providers located outside of California.