The clients at The Chrysalis House, an immersive, in-patient drug rehabilitation center, each day is about learning how to live a clean and healthy life by implementing self-care routines such as group meals and meetings as well as educational programming targeting their subsequent reintegration to independent living. To aid in this learning process the Fayette County Nutrition Education Program offers clients in person nutrition classes as well as hands-n training regarding food safety and preparation, knife skills, meal planning and cooking technique. For many of the clients this was their first time performing these activities.

In order to measure the reach and quality of programming, participants are administered a survey on the first and last days of class. In these surveys respondents are asked to  self-report on their diet, exercise, frequency of meals and meal preparation and other indicators of food behavior over the past several days. In the survey given on the first day the largest number of respondents reported cooking meals at home on average 1 day a week or less. By the last session the group had shown an improvement of nearly 67% in that category. This directly indicates that the knowledge and skills learned in their nutrition classes are being implemented into the clients’ everyday lives.