Early Care and Education Learning Collaboratives

Partner: Nemours Children’s Health System

Funder: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

The Center for Nutrition & Health Impact (formerly the Gretchen Swanson Center for Nutrition) provided six years of evaluation for the ECELC project, which aimed to improve the policies and practices in ECE programs regarding nutrition, physical activity, screen time, outdoor play and breastfeeding support. 

The Center measured the impact that intervention components (in-person learning and training sessions, action planning and implementation and technical assistance) had on improving ECE programs’ healthy eating and active living-based practices and policies using the Nutrition and Physical Activity Self-Assessment for Child Care (NAP SACC). The Center also conducted multiple sub-evaluations, which included examining the extent to which adaptations to the original ECELC model performed when implemented in natural, “real-world” settings, and also exploring the experiences of family child care providers who participated in the ECELC compared to center-based directors and staff. The Center also sought to describe the impact the ECELC has had on the ECE field, which was delivered in a report at the project’s completion.

Over the six years, Nemours Children’s Health System has implemented the ECELC to more than 2,000 family child care providers and center-based ECE programs in Alabama, Arizona, California, Florida, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri, New Jersey and Virginia. Nemours’ former Project Director Julie Shuell said, “It was a huge project stretching over six years with hundreds of ECE programs and providers over 10+ states.  It was great to have the Center for Nutrition & Health Impact as a partner all along the way – during program design and for all the sub-studies we designed and executed.  There’s a tremendous amount of learning to be shared now – anecdotal and qualitative – about how to support ECE programs to make healthy changes that impact children.” “State and local policymakers want to improve children’s health, but resources are limited. Knowing and understanding what works and why it works, provides them with important information to select interventions. Because we have evaluated ECELC, we know what results can be expected and can more easily convince state and local leaders to try it,” Shuell said. 

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View the learning session model.

Chiappone, A., Smith, T.M., Estabrooks, P.A., Rasmussen, C.G., Blaser, C., & Yaroch, A.L. Technical assistance and changes in nutrition and physical activity practices in the National Early Care and Education Learning Collaboratives Project, 2015-2016. Preventing Chronic Disease. 2018 Apr 26;15:E47. doi: 10.5888/pcd15.170239.

Garvin, T.M., Chiappone, A., Boyd, L.W., Shuell, J., Plumlee, C., & Yaroch, A.L. (In Press). Effectiveness in adapting the implementation of the Early Care and Education Learning Collaboratives Project (ECELC) using real-world conditions. Translational Behavioral Medicine. 

Garvin, T.M, Weissenburger- Moser Boyd, L, Chiappone, A., Blaser, C., Story, M., Gertel-Rosenberg, A., Shuell, J., Chang D., Ward, D., Plumlee, C., Beets, M., Yaroch A.L. Multisector Approach to Improve Healthy Eating and Physical Activity Policies and Practices in Early Care and Education Programs: The National Early Care and Education Learning Collaboratives Project, 2013–2017. Preventing Chronic Disease 2019;16:180582. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5888/pcd16.180582.

Smith, T.M., Blaser, C., Geno-Rasmussen, C., Plumlee, C., Shuell, J., Gargano, T., & Yaroch, A.L. Improving nutrition and physical activity policies and practices in early care and education in three states, 2014–2016. Preventing Chronic Disease. 2017 Aug 31;14:E73. doi: 10.5888/pcd14.160513. 

Smith, T.M., Blaser, C., Geno-Rasmussen, C., Shuell, J., Plumlee, C., & Yaroch, A.L. Assessment of nutrition and physical activity practices using self-report and observation in early care and education across multiple US states. Public Health Nutrition. 2017 Jun;20(9):1692-1698. doi: 10.1017/S1368980017000155. Epub 2017 Mar 6.