How to Achieve Goal I: Spotlight on Boise, Idaho

Get started on Goal I: Start Early, Start Smart! Early care and education (ECE) programs (including family and center-based child care, Head Start programs, preschools and pre-K programs) exist in every community and are an ideal place to reach young children and help them develop healthy behaviors that can last a lifetime.  As a local elected official, you have a powerful opportunity to support and recognize ECE providers in your community as they make improvements in their centers and homes to prevent childhood obesity.

• You can achieve a Goal I bronze medal by establishing an active interagency collaboration on early care and education programs. Representatives of this collaboration could include:  health and human services agencies, child welfare organizations, park and recreation agencies, community and faith-based organizations, parent organizations, child care commissions, state or local child care resource and referral agencies, and ECE providers.
• To achieve a Goal I silver medal, promote participation in Let’s Move! Child Care among ECE providers using at least three approaches. Approaches could include your city/town/county website, local media stories, visits made to local ECE providers, or even a local elected official’s press announcement.
• Go for a Goal I gold medal! Integrate the five goals of Let’s Move! Child Care into at least one professional development training offered annually to ECE providers.

The City of Boise, Idaho has gone above and beyond in achieving Goal I with their child-care workshop series led by the Let’s Move Boise! coalition.

Since March 2013, Boise has hosted five Let’s Move Boise! workshops to teach local child-care providers how to incorporate healthy nutrition and physical activity into their programs. The workshops focus on four areas that align closely with the Let’s Move! Child Care goals:

• Limiting sedentary, non-educational screen time,
• Creating opportunities for daily physical activity,
• Meeting nutrition standards for meals and snacks, and
• Supporting  infant feeding.

At the workshops, child-care providers complete a program assessment, participate in interactive lessons, receive an extensive set of resources (i.e. lesson plans, handouts, and activity ideas) and develop an action plan based on their goals (see template action plans for home-based childcare providers and center-based child care providers). To incentivize participation, workshops are accepted as a part of the Idaho STARS professional development system under the Health and Safety category, meaning that providers receive credit for attending these trainings. Boise is also considering supplementing in-person trainings with online trainings in the future.

See slides from the training and additional resources provided. The training has been very well-received by providers from large and small day care centers.

The City is in the process of strengthening the standards surrounding early care, with the goal of reducing childhood obesity rates. Two thirds of all parents utilize childcare in Boise.  Council Member TJ Thomson has brought forward a proposed change to the city’s child care ordinance, which would establish benchmarks for nutrition, the amount of daily physical activity, limit the amount of screen time children receive each day while in the care of a city-licensed child care facility, and add new infant feeding standards.  The ordinance will require all child-care directors to complete training in order to maintain their license. Their provider compliance status with each of the healthy initiative components will be tracked on a website which provides parents with a decision-making tool that can be used when selecting a provider.  Learn more about the proposed changes here. The proposal is presently in the process of being drafted for a public hearing.

Partners involved in the Let’s Move Boise! child-care workshop program include Idaho STARS, Blue Cross of Idaho Foundation for Health, Idaho Association for the Education of Young Children, Central District Health Department, and Boise Parks & Recreation.

To learn more about Boise’s efforts, contact Amy Stahl at astahl@cityofboise.org or read the Let’s Move Boise! annual report.