Roadmap for SNAP-Ed in Early Childhood Education Centers

Project

• Led research in a three-phase project to develop a tool or product to: 1) support SNAP-Ed nutrition educators in reaching and engaging caregivers of young children in early childhood education centers and 2) build and maintain transformational, multisector partnerships to support sustainability.

• Primary research question:

  • How might we support nutrition educators in partnering with early childhood education centers to deliver desirable, sustainable programming?

Project Team: Claire Sadeghzadeh (Research Lead), Jared Bishop (Facilitator), Lindsay Guge Cozon (Facilitator), Eduardo Hernandez (Facilitator), Tracy Dearth Wesley (Research Specialist), Megan Bradley (Research Specialist), Molly De Marco (Principal Investigator)

Process

• Phase One: Facilitated virtual workshops with 8 caregivers of young children who were SNAP-eligible to generate user insights.

  • Utilized sampling on the extremes to select caregivers based on household size, age of children, employment (full time, part time, etc.), experience with and openness to nutrition education, geographics, and primary language spoken at home.

  • Designed three workshops to understand user desires, pain points, and opportunities for integrating or enhancing nutrition education within their children’s early childcare education centers. Utilized empathy mapping, journey mapping, card sorts, and brainstorming.

• Phase Two: Convened and facilitated co-creation session with multisectoral stakeholders and caregivers to move their ideas into action while centering expressed needs and desires.

  • Invited stakeholders needed for implementation, including center directions, technical assistance providers, and nutrition educations.

  • Designed three co-creation sessions that used brainstorming, mind mapping, and storyboarding to develop a final product for nutrition educators.

• Phase Three: Synthesized user insights, implementation recommendations, and co-created products (like planning surveys) to develop a roadmap for engagement within early childcare education centers.

  • Engaged stakeholders in rapid prototyping and iterations of core elements.

  • Worked with designer to visualize these data into a user-friendly document.

User Insights

• Caregivers want to contribute their gifts and talents to their kids’ schools to help identify solutions, support wellness programs, and increase caregiver engagement.

• Caregivers want to feel connected with teachers and other parents to share concerns, problem solve, receive, and provide emotional support, and access other tangible resources to support my families’ wellbeing.

• Wellbeing includes the whole person: physical, mental, social, and emotional.

• Caregivers need programs to be flexible. Flexibility means offered at different times, in several formats (in person versus virtual), and provides enough variety in topics to keep it interesting.

• Provide instructions and/or training for virtual opportunities to make sure caregivers can fully engage.

Takeaways

• Budget time for relationship building during user engagement; move at the speed of trust.

• Compensate people with lived experience as experts.

• Attend to power dynamics within co-creation spaces by naming and celebrating unique insights and roles and establishing group norms that prioritize multiple ways of knowing.

• Authentic relationships with caregivers and early childhood education center staff are key for program sustainability.

Products

Roadmap for SNAP-Ed Engagement in ECE Settings

Adapting Design Thinking Methods and Best Practices to a Virtual Environment