How to teach low income, working parents of preschooler about healthy nutrition with their preschoolers and also having no physical contact with any children during our lock downs for covid was a challenge for me as a nutrition education program assistant with the Cumberland County extension office. Even at the best of times with no covid we had trouble reaching these families. The FCS agent and I went to the HANDS program with the Health department and they had events like baby showers and fall/Halloween and holiday events where we gave out information bags on the programs we offered. It had very limited in outreach success.

So when covid hit and we were not allowed in any child care facilities. We implemented our virtual program with the parents at one of the day cares. This meant the parents agreed to follow our program on facebook at their own time where the extension staff demonstrated recipes from the farmers market  shoppers guide which follow the Plan eat move program along with the Healthy Choice lessons curriculum. The children and parents received a bag with program materials which they both had to complete and hand back at the next bag drop off. I would drop these bags at the childcare reception and the day care staff would make sure they received them. All other communication was done by email and facebook messaging.

I gave out 30 invitation bags and only got 5 acceptances, which was low but I felt a positive start however two failed to finish the Healthy Choices program, 1 of which declined to fill in the surveys and information sheets. The other found it too difficult to keep up with her work and home life. The others were very committed and found the program rewarding and beneficial they said. We pre and post surveyed the adults they showed 100% improvement in eating more fruit each day and eating yogurt or drinking a smoothie with yogurt, Two drank more milk each day and ate more dark green vegetables. All have since joined other programs with extension. Research shows that children learn by example so this bodes well for their children. The preschoolers were a huge success with Discovering My Plate Curriculum all of them completing their assignments and we felt that they were the ones keeping their parents focused on the classes.