CATCH Champion for May 2007
An Interview with Kristen Rusho
CATCH Program Director
Greater Rochester, New York YMCA
What prompted you to be an advocate and champion of children's health?
I applied for the CATCH Program Director position with the YMCA of Greater Rochester, New York, knowing little about the CATCH Program. I knew it was a prevention program aimed at shaping healthy behaviors of school-age children with regard to physical activity and nutrition/eating habits. After getting the position, it was extremely apparent that the philosophy of the CATCH Program resonated with my vision of building healthy behaviors from childhood, rather than trying to change behaviors in adolescents/adults. I fundamentally agree with the coordinated approach of CATCH, from the YMCA's perspective of incorporating CATCH into our after-school child care programs, but know that establishing behaviors cannot be done alone. So as the CATCH Program Director, it has been my role to attempt to make the integration of CATCH into not only our after-school program, but to involve the schools, parents, and community to the best of our ability as a YMCA. When did you adopt the CATCH Program and what prompted you to do so?
We adopted the CATCH Program first at the level of piloting the program in 13 of our 40 after-school childcare sites. We first received funding from a local insurance company to complete a 6-month pilot to see how the program worked in an after-school setting. CATCH was researched and evidenced based, which is why the YMCA of Greater Rochester tried it in the first place, though it had never been implemented in the after-school setting. From there, the YMCA of Greater Rochester applied for a 3-year federal PEP grant, which we received. This allowed for the full-time position of the CATCH program director to oversee all aspects of the program and its integration into 40 of our after-school childcare sites.
Describe notable changes since implementing CATCH and how you know CATCH is working.
The most notable change would be with regard to the training and evaluation process of our school-age child care staff and programs. CATCH had an enormous effect on our after-school childcare programs. We were able to put training systems into place to ensure that all the child care staff were trained to run CATCH games with the basic principles incorporated (i.e. activity from the get-go, clear stop/start signals, boundaries and routines, involvement by all kids or non-elimination games, and supervision). CATCH allowed for consistency among our childcare programs and has helped with the amount of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity all children had the opportunity to engage in on a daily basis. The other prong of CATCH is the weekly “health messages” we do with the children, talking about healthy eating choices based on “sometimes” and “everyday” foods. Another benefit of CATCH is that the program integrates some simplistic rules which can be used throughout the program (i.e. stop/start signals) and gets children interacting with each other. CATCH also helps with behavior management (by having planned activities for the kids that are engaging and FUN doesn't allow for a lot of down time) and the ability for children to focus when it is homework time (they get their energy out in the gym).
The evaluation process proves the success of the program. Before the integration of CATCH, when we completed our first pre SOFIT, the children were only spending about 38% of their daily “active time” being moderately-to-vigorously physically activity (MVPA). After training the childcare staff and integrating the CATCH program into our after-school program, we went back out to the sites to perform another SOFIT. The percentage of daily MVPA jumped to 60-65% and has remained at that level for the past 3 years as we complete our SOFIT evaluations 2 to 3 times per year. We have also seen changes in health behaviors with the health-based questionnaire (HBQ) given to children grades 3 to 5 two times a year. Though the changes with the health behaviors around nutrition are not as significant as the physical activity, we have moved in a positive direction.
What are the keys to your success?
• Buy in at all levels from the top down, key people being full-time directors (especially childcare directors).
• Training and evaluation is key!
• Ensuring that the frontline staff is acting as a role model (i.e. no soda or fast food at site; playing the games with kids and HAVING FUN!!!).
• The staff that is there daily with the children runs the games (i.e. this is not a special program where someone else comes in and runs the games, it is integrated into what happens at sites on a daily basis). What was your most significant barrier and how did you overcome the challenge?
The most significant barrier is a tough barrier to overcome. School-age childcare has high staff turn over rate. To overcome this, we need to make sure that the staff know their responsibilities with CATCH during the interview process and there are systems in place to ensure that new staff is being trained in the proper manner. This has become less of a barrier as the program has become truly integrated into the program after suffering from some growing pains during year 1. It is critical that the childcare directors are on top of CATCH and are informally training people as they are hired. As long as the basic principles of CATCH are followed (as stated above in question 3) then the staff cannot go wrong with games. We have also seen a slightly better retention rate with staff after integrating CATCH because there is value with the addition of the program and the staff is learning valuable and marketable skills.
What advice can you offer for those just beginning and for those who have already implemented the CATCH Program.
Change is hard for anyone and any program. You must make sure that you have full-time staff brought in before you start to train the part-time staff. It is critical to build on small successes and still keep moving forward to ensure that you get to your goal (whatever you set your goal at –30 minutes of MVPA). Don't expect to go from no structure to a perfect picture of CATCH. Start small, with one or two sites or classrooms (PE classes) where you think you will have the most success and use those as models to spread. Make sure you take time to train and educate your staff (especially if they have little knowledge around nutrition – i.e. what is a carbohydrate, fat and protein). Staff members may come in with misconceptions about activity/nutrition or have poor habits themselves. Knowledge is power.
What has been the reaction from parents, administration, students and community?
We are still in the process of involving the parents in the form of Family Nights; also educating them about and involving them with what we are doing. Talking about healthy recipes, what they do as a family on the weekends or outside of the school-age childcare program, encouraging healthy activities and fresh foods. This program has opened the doors with communication and has made it much easier to build relationships with families. Instead of parents using our school-age childcare program as a babysitting service, we now have established relationships around healthy environments and are taking a vested interest in families wants, needs and interests.
What is your CATCH vision?
My vision for CATCH would be for the program to be the language/action for communities at large. If a community could deliver the same messages to families around healthy physical activity and eating, it could have a tremendous effect. We could build healthy behaviors and have a higher functioning, lower disease rate population. There would be support for this at every twist and turn, convenience stores, schools, YMCAs, grocery stores, and anywhere people go as a family. That would be the ultimate vision.
How do you sustain the program from year to year?
Constant training and evaluation are the two main things. We must hold people accountable and make CATCH a way of work. We have seen substantial changes in our childcare programs thus far and we will continue to see these changes as long as we keep CATCH in the forefront of our minds and actions. Back to Archives Contact us for more information on CATCH!
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