Overview

Many nutrition education lessons have been created nationally with the objective of providing nutrition education to limited resource audiences. However, many of these lessons have been created for "one on one" programming. Most focus on knowledge gain rather than on behavior change and many have not been created with the paraprofessional educator in mind. In answer to unmet needs, New Jersey FSNEP continues to create behaviorally-focused, researched based, and tested nutrition education lessons for small group programming that are designed for paraprofessional use.

During the 2001 fiscal year the development of this website was begun for use by our nutrition education staff as well as staff from other state universities and their programs that work with food stamp participants. The website was developed with the objective of:

1. Sharing what we do
2. Providing state staff with updated lessons which could be made available for use as quickly as they are produced
3. Making materials available to our employees at a minimal cost which enables them to print them on office printers

Project Goal

• To use the website to communicate new lessons to our field staff in an effective and efficient medium which communicates new programming in a timely fashion.
• Further the development of the FSNEP website (http://www.fsnep.rutgers.edu) by promoting, piloting and evaluating its use by staff that use the resources from the website to provide nutrition education.

Project Objectives

• Develop behaviorally focused nutrition education lessons
• Further the development and evaluation of the curriculum support (i.e., lessons and educational materials) portion of the website

Behavioral Objective

As a result of this project, food stamp recipients and food stamp eligible residents will be better served through the provision of new nutrition education lessons. In addition to the lessons, food stamp participants and food stamp eligible residents will be better served through:

• The immediate provision of new nutrition education lessons made available to educators
• Learn-At-Home materials that can be distributed by educators to the Food Stamp populations they work with
• New material made available on the web to outside sources
• Sharing of innovative project information that targets the food stamp population throughout the State of New Jersey
• Availability of information to those working in Food Stamp Nutrition Education Programs nationaliy

Evaluation

• Gather information from those working in the field regarding the types of lessons that they most need
• Research the topic(s) and write background information that is appropriate for a paraprofessional audience that will use the lesson
• Have lessons reviewed by faculty and professional staff
• Test each lesson via three paraprofessionals
• Modify the lesson, and have it re-tested if necessary
• Have lesson put up on the website

Contact

Dr. Debrah Palmer
Nutrition Specialist
Rutgers Dept. of Nutritional Sciences
26 Nichol Avenue, Davison Hall
New Brunswick, NJ 08901-2882
Phone: (732) 932-9853
Fax: (732) 932-6522
Email: dpalmer@njaes.rutgers.edu

Judy Klavens-Giunta, RD
Senior Program Coordinator
Department of Nutritional Sciences
26 Nichol Avenue, Room 202
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
Phone: (732) 932-5265
Email: giunta@aesop.rutgers.edu