Supporting Healthy Eating and Nutrition for Head Start Children and Families

Supporting Healthy Eating and Nutrition for Head Start Children and Families

Glenna Davis: Hello, and welcome, everyone, to the Supporting Healthy Eating for Head Start Children and Families webcast. Now, I'd like to turn the floor over to Catherine Granito, senior advisor to the US Department of Health and Human Services, and Andrew Gradison, assistant secretary for the Administration for Children and Families. Catherine and Andrew, the floor is yours.

Catherine Granito: Thank you so much. Hi, Head Start community. My name is Catherine Granito. I am the senior advisor at the Department of Health and Human Services for our MAHA policy. I'm really excited to be here with each of you today. I'm grateful for the opportunity, and I'm excited to support you all in healthy eating and nutritional services at the Head Start programs across the country.

I'm, again, eager to discuss how we can support you further. I just want to say thank you so much for all that you do, and on behalf of the children and the families, we're really grateful for the tools that you're providing to help them live very healthy and thriving lives. This is awesome. I know it's National Nutrition Month, so that's also very exciting for us. We're reinforcing our commitment to make America healthy again. We're prioritizing healthy eating, nutrition for Head Start programs and grant recipients.

Nutrition is a cornerstone of Head Start. As you all know, it's the comprehensive services in which they get ... and it's vital to over 800,000 children and families. Head Start is each year making a difference more and more. On behalf of Secretary Kennedy, we say thank you. I know Secretary Kennedy just had the opportunity to go visit a Head Start program in Virginia last week, I believe it was.

Gosh, it was so wonderful to see all the educators in action, teaching the kids how to care for themselves, the importance of healthy eating. As you all likely know, Head Start is close to home for the secretary and his family, as his uncle, President John F Kennedy and Sargent Shriver, I believe, they both played key roles in the Head Start's development. Both men were deeply concerned with poverty and the need to provide more educational opportunities for children.

Chronic disease, heart disease, diabetes, this was a great first step of leaving no stone unturned as part of the MAHA priority and agenda. I just wanted to say that the nutritional services can particularly be important for the families who experience food insecurity and living communities where affordability, healthy food, food deserts ... are less available.

Head Start really leads the way as part of comprehensive services for programs to provide children the needs that they need to grow and use healthy living styles. I know there's a growing number of Head Start families that are also participating in SNAP and WIC. You all play a very critical role in helping the parents navigate the federal programs and ensure coordination is maximized to all the resources that we have.

I feel like I've just taken up the entire bit of time here. Really quick, I just want to say we're super grateful for all of you. We know that the programs are doing really well in the areas you're serving and that this work is not easy. We see you. We know that it can come with challenges. We're excited to really emphasize the initiatives of prioritizing and addressing barriers that your programs are facing when it comes to increasing access to nutrient-dense foods and fresh foods, healthy foods and reducing intake of ultra-processed foods. We're really excited to get this going.

Thank you so much for having me today. I don't know what I've left for Andrew to say, but I'm going to pass it off to him. I hope you all know from the bottom of our hearts here at HHS and the secretary, we are so excited to see the growth, and we're really grateful for you all. Thank you so much. I am now passing this off to the acting assistant secretary for the Administration of Children and Families, Andrew Gradison.

Andrew Gradison: Thank you, Catherine. Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us. My name is Andrew Gradison, and I am the acting assistant secretary for the Administration for Children and Families. As you all know and as I continue to learn, nutrition services have been a hallmark of the Head Start program since its inception in 1965, and we're excited to continue that work together.

Healthy eating is essential for children's brain development, immune health and overall growth. The Head Start Program Performance Standards detail specific child nutrition requirements that match the USDA guidelines including the requirements of the Child and Adult Care Food Program, or what we all know as CACFP. As part of today's webinar, the Office of Head Start Leadership will review the relevant statutory and regulatory requirements related to nutrition services.

As you may know, the dietary guidelines for Americans are updated every 5 years by our department, the US Department on Health and Human Services, in partnership with the United States Department of Agriculture. They are due for their regular update for 2025 through 2030 to reflect the latest body of nutrition science. As an example, the current Dietary Guidelines mandate low-fat options including low fat and fat-free dairy products for children over the age of two, but we're aware of emerging research that supports full-fat dairy for child development.

While HHS works with USDA to update the dietary guidelines for Americans that inform the CACFP requirements, Head Start programs can already explore offering whole dairy including whole milk where your funding might allow it. The Office of Head Start will support implementation of the updated guidelines while meeting current standards.

One of the most important things that your programs do each day is partner with your families to support their well-being and their child's learning and development. This can look like conversations about the importance of healthy eating, the negative consequences of sugar-sweetened beverages and ultra-processed foods, but also the importance of physical activity.

You help parents to select and prepare nutritious foods that meet their family's nutrition and budget needs. You also share materials with your families that support making meals fun and educational at home. As young children's skills develop, they can participate in setting the table, washing fruit and vegetables, mixing ingredients.

Your families can extend these learning moments by inviting children to count or measure ingredients, identify colors in foods and expand their vocabulary. Some of you have on-site gardens, which we love, where families can take home fresh produce. Some of your programs provide recipe tutorials and send home cooking supplies like pots, pans and Crock-Pots.

We know that many programs are partnering with local farms and grocery stores to make healthy food more accessible in communities where a significant portion of the population has to travel long distances or don't have sufficient transportation to find healthy food options. We encourage you to continue the good work there.

We also want to celebrate and share the good work that you're already doing and explore ways to expand our reach among the families we serve and the broader communities that we partner with to nourish the futures of our nation's children. That's why we do it. It's for the kids. The guidance we released last week, and this webinar are meant to be the first in a series of resources and events coming up to promote, amplify and share new and innovative practices for nutrition-based approaches to nourish future generations.

I want to pause and just say thank you for everything you're doing on behalf of children and families in this country. I applaud you for your work, and I implore you to keep it up and make sure that our children come first. Thank you so much for having me.

Capt. Tala Hooban: Thank you, Catherine, and thank you Acting Assistant Secretary Gradison. Hi, Head Start. I'd like to start us off today with our ... I see people are still ticking in, so we'll give them some time. Thank you, again, for the commitment for Catherine and Andrew for sharing about promoting healthy eating and nutrition services for Head Start children and families.

It is an absolute joy to be with you all today and to be talking about our foundational role in Head Start with nutrition services and how we can improve health outcomes for communities across the country. Up on the screen is a list of today's presenters. I don't think I introduced myself. You have heard from Catherine Granito, the senior advisor. You've heard from Acting Assistant Secretary Andrew Gradison. I am Tala Hooban. I'm the acting director for Head Start. 
I'm joined today by some lovely folks you've seen before, the director for Policy and Planning, Jess Bialecki, Jessica, and Marco Beltran, our health and family engagement branch chief at the Office of Head Start. Next slide, please.

Some of you may have recently seen the published information memoranda. If you haven't had a chance to take a look, we will drop that in the chat, the link on the HeadStart.gov website. Today, we're going to dive into that IM. We have a lot of information together to cover in a short period of time, so we will try to talk slow. In doing so, we're going to affirm Head Start's role in ensuring that children and families have access to healthy food and nutrition services, to review relevant statutory and regulatory requirements, to share resources and partnerships available to support these efforts, and lastly, we'll provide tips and innovative strategies to foster enthusiasm for healthy eating in early learning environments.

Next slide, please. Before we start, actually, I wasn't planning on doing this, but one of ... Our early childhood deputy assistant secretary joined, too. She's in listen-only mode. It's her second day. But I do want to acknowledge that she's also on, Lori Smith, Dr. Lori Smith. Just wanted to make sure people have heard the news. I'm sure, but just wanted to make sure folks see that she's also on. Some background, we're going to start our deep dive by focusing on some background information, talking about nutrition services in Head Start and why they're so important.

At any point during this presentation, I want to really encourage you all to use the Q&A function or the chat to send in your questions, your comments. We really intend to have future webinars and materials on this topic, and we'd love to hear what you are interested in, what you need information on. With that in mind, let's move forward. Next slide, please.

Again, you've heard these 1 million times, and you feel it every day. Head Start programs play an important role in achieving healthy outcomes for children and families. Nutrition services are particularly impactful for these families who experience food insecurity or living in communities where affordable, healthy food is less available. Head Start programs promote the access to healthy food and nutrition in many ways.

This includes but is not at all limited to increasing access to and availability of healthy foods for children with families in classrooms, during home visits or group socialization activities and during parent and family engagement activities; supporting families with pregnancy, postpartum and breastfeeding; and helping families access affordable, healthy food options at home, providing families with education on nutrition and the importance of physical activity. Head Start programs also reduce administrative burden and support for families to get connected with other nutrition-related services where they may be eligible.

Of course, Head Start programs use registered dietitians or nutritionists to support the implementation of the Head Start requirements for healthy nutrition. Last but not least at all is making safe drinking water available to children during the program day.

Next slide. Head Start programs play an important role in achieving healthy outcomes. Good nutrition is essential for brain development and provides children with the energy they need to stay active and focused throughout the program day. A balanced diet helps strengthen the child's immune system, reduce the risk of infections and illnesses.

It also prevents childhood obesity, which can lead to chronic diseases like heart disease and diabetes. Healthy foods, which are rich in vitamins, minerals and nutrients, and are low in saturated fats and added sugars and salts, are the building blocks for healthy bones and teeth. Nutrition services can be particularly impactful for families who experience food insecurity or live in communities where affordable, healthy food is less available. Next slide.

Research on Head Start's nutrition services affirm healthy outcomes. More specifically, healthy children, or Head Start children, are more likely to receive dental checkups and have healthy eating patterns than non-participants; generally have lower body mass index, BMI scores and are less likely to be overweight compared to children in other non-parental care; and obese, overweight or underweight children who participate in Head Start have a significantly healthier BMI, body mass index, by kindergarten.

There are long-term health outcomes, too. For example, Head Start graduates have better health status as adults than non-graduates. There are also 7% less likely to be in poor health as adults than their siblings who did not attend Head Start. With all that background, I'm going to transition to Jess to talk about the IM.

Jessica Bialecki: Hi, everyone, and thank you, Tala. Great to be with you today, Head Start community. Again, my name is Jessica Bialecki. I'm the director of Policy and Planning at the Office of Head Start. I will be grounding us in the relevant statutory and regulatory requirements. We know we love the Head Start Act and our standards, so I'm going to talk through those relating to this topic.

As you all know, nutrition services have been a hallmark of the Head Start program since its inception. We're in year 60 now. This is reflected in our Head Start Act and in our Performance Standards, which detail all of our program requirements related to food and nutrition. For instance, if you're a policy wonk like me, you know that Section 638 of our Act identifies nutrition as a key activity of the funding provided to Head Start agencies.

Then Section 648 of the Act requires programs to qualified staff who can promote the importance of healthy nutritional choices in daily classroom and family routines to prevent childhood obesity. The Act mentions nutrition services in other areas as well. That's an essential part of our comprehensive Head Start services.

I just want to say, as Tala mentioned, and I see we have some questions coming in already, I do want to encourage you all as we go through this to keep adding your questions into the Q&A function on this webinar. We'll do our best to keep up, but make sure we get you the information after if we can't during this time and to add comments in the chat. Let's go to the next slide.

Teaching and learning, my favorite as a former early childhood educator myself, so to start, let's take a look at the nutrition requirements for teaching and learning environments. Subpart D of our Performance Standards focuses on the health and mental health requirements for Head Start programs. What it says is that programs must provide high-quality health, oral health, mental health and nutrition services that are developmentally, culturally and linguistically appropriate and that will support each child's growth and school readiness.

We see that in 1302.40. This includes serving foods that are familiar to children and, as I tell my 3-1/2-year-old twins, new foods, too. There are various requirements within this subpart that elaborate on what is expected of Head Start programs in the area of nutrition services, which we'll continue on in the next few slides. But first and foremost, all Head Start programs must design and implement nutrition services that meet the dietary needs of each child.

As we know, that includes children, and especially with special dietary needs and children with disabilities, to support growth and school readiness. Then to ensure up-to-date child health status, Head Start programs, in addition to medical, oral health and mental health, programs must identify each child's nutritional health, considering available health information such as special dietary requirements, food allergies and community nutrition issues. Let's go to the next slide.

The Performance Standards, I'm sure you're familiar with these ones at 1302.44. These are our nutrition standards. These detail specific child nutrition requirements. These include ... We start out by talking about how each child in the program, if you are fewer than 6 hours, right, so a shorter day, that you're getting meals and snacks for 1/3 to 1/2 of a child's daily nutritional needs. Then we go on to say that if it's 6 hours or more, you should be giving meals and snacks that provide 1/2 to 2/3 of the daily nutritional needs.

We're seeing that we're responsible for quite a bit of the daily nutrition for the kids that we serve. We're responsible for serving our 3-to-5-year-olds meals and snacks that conform to USDA requirements and are high in nutrients and low in saturated fat, sugar and salt. As our Acting Assistant Secretary mentioned, we do expect possible future updates to nutrition guidelines to reflect the latest science that we're learning including providing whole, full-fat dairy for child development.

We're responsible for making sure that all children receive a nourishing breakfast by providing nutrient-rich foods for children who did not eat breakfast before they arrived at their Head Start center. We know how important that meal is. Then in addition to that, we look at our home-based options. We're responsible for providing appropriate healthy snacks and meals to each child during those group socialization activities.

Now, when we go to our younger infants and toddlers, Head Start programs should promote breastfeeding for mothers who wish to breastfeed during program hours, which may include offering facilities to properly store and handle breast milk as well as making accommodations when needed. Then relatedly, we know our standards require that we connect families to community lactation consultants or counselors when those families choose breastfeeding but need support to be successful. Let's go to the next slide.

When we look at subpart C of our Performance Standards, again, this is getting into our teaching and learning environment, specifically when our children are with us in center-based and family childcare programs. Our standards ensure that our mealtimes are structured and that, most critically, they're used as learning opportunities. We know that it's not just about the eating.

We strengthen our language skills through social conversations. We strengthen our fine motor abilities through handling utensils or serving aids. Then critically, the social skills involved in the back-and-forth mealtime conversation, always one of my favorite parts as a teacher, help children navigate friendships, turn-taking and self-regulation. Let's go to the next slide. We can go to the next slide. There we go.

One of my favorite topics, family-style dining. Programs based on our standards must implement snack and mealtimes in a manner, like we said, that supports children's development and learning. We see language here in 1302.31. This is where we get into family-style dining, when children and teachers sit down together for a meal or a snack.

We encourage this whenever developmentally appropriate to support consistency between home and school and really replicate the experience of eating together as a family. Family-style dining offers a chance for staff, so teachers and other staff, to model healthy food choices and the importance of nutrition. We encourage our programs to use family-style meals whenever developmentally appropriate because we know that it supports children to learn in developmentally appropriate ways.

Concepts such as serving sizes, nutritional food groups, and again, I say to my 3-1/2-year-old children, the value of trying new foods. It also offers opportunities for children to practice using appropriately sized utensils, to serve themselves and help them to learn how to set and clear the table which, as we said, not only helps build their fine motor skills, also boosts their self-confidence and expands their social skills.

I used to love it when my kids that I taught would go home and their parents would come in say, "My child cleaned the table last night. I couldn't believe it." That's early childhood. That's Head Start at work. As we continued from the previous slide, and we were talking about health programs, how we implement snacks and mealtimes in a manner that supports development and learning, we also know that we support children's understanding of how food and nutrition contribute to growth and overall health.

This is part of our ELOF, our Early Learning Outcomes Framework. One of the ways we do that is by making snacks and mealtimes a positive experience for kids. We have to give our kids sufficient time to eat. We don't use food as a reward or a punishment or force children to finish their food. Our Performance Standards help programs make meals enjoyable, as we all want, by creating positive eating environments where children are supported to have a healthy relationship with food.

For example, preschoolers should be supported to identify a variety of healthy and unhealthy foods and to make healthy eating choices both independently and with support. A toddler, as we look down the continuum, should show willingness to try nutritious foods when offered on multiple occasions.

We look for different things for our different age groups, as we know, with all parts of the ELOF. We also want to promote consistency in mealtime routines between home and school. We talked about family-style dining. With our infants, we want to do that through one-on-one time for infants during bottle feeding. For bottle-fed infants, Head Start programs must hold infants during feeding to support that socialization.

This one-on-one time, which, again, I have to say as a director, is one of my favorite parts, times to stop in classrooms and take part in. It helps staff build their relationships with infants and build the foundation for learning and development through safe and trusting relationships. We're helping our very youngest children feel secure and confident about exploring the world around them. Let's go to the next slide. OK. We talked a lot about the teaching and learning environment. As we all know here, the parent and family engagement is a cornerstone of our comprehensive Head Start services.

Programs must partner with families to support their well-being and their children's learning and development. Nutrition is a huge part of that. We promote children and families' health by providing nutrition education support services that are understandable to individuals including individuals who may have lower health literacy. That's in our 1302.46.

We collaborate with parents to discuss their child's nutritional status including but not limited to the importance of healthy eating, the negative health consequences of sugar-sweetened beverages and, very importantly, the importance of physical activity. We also help parents understand how to select and prepare nutritious foods that meet the family's nutrition and food budget needs. Programs are strongly encouraged to provide specific information to families about the importance of eating whole foods, minimizing ultra-processed foods and avoiding added sugars such as those in sugar and other sweetened beverages. Tala, how are we doing?

Capt. Hooban: We're good. I think you did such a thorough overview that all these Q&As and chats are coming in, so please keep them coming. Up next, we're going to talk about some of the funding and partnerships available to support nutrition services for Head Start programs and the children and families we serve. As a reminder, keep the questions coming. It'll just help inform our future webinars and discussions. Back to you, Jess.

Jessica: Thanks, Tala. All Head Start programs, grant recipients and delegate agencies are required to participate, as you know, in the United States Department of Agriculture, USDA, Food, Nutrition and Consumer Services Child Nutrition programs, which include the Child and Adult Care Food Program, CACFP. I do want to point out that they also include the National School Lunch Program and the National School Breakfast Program.

We did get a couple of questions after we released our guidance because our guidance specifically mentioned CACFP but didn't mention National School Lunch Program and National School Breakfast. I want to make sure to point out that absolutely thanks for those questions. The requirement is around participating in USDA child nutrition programs, which do include school lunch and school breakfast.

We may use CACFP kind of a shorthand in many places but know that we're talking about the larger USDA child nutrition programs. CACFP provides reimbursements for nutritious meals and snacks to eligible children in participating programs including our Head Start programs. We know that implementing the CACFP meal patterns help to ensure that our children receive a variety of nutrient-dense foods.

That includes whole grains, a variety of fruits, fresh fruits and vegetables, all while also reducing the intake of ultra-processed foods, added sugar intake and saturated fats. One of the things I love that CACFP provides is they have a number of resources, but among them is a seasonal buying guide, which I actually admit to using in my own home, to promote in-season local produce, which is often full of flavor and nutrients, less reliant on chemicals and pesticides and supports sustainability and local farmers. Let's go to the next slide.

Continuing on CACFP, the amount and type of food we know varies based on the meal or snack as well as the specific age group being served. USDA has a wealth of resources to assist program officials in determining how foods credit towards the meal pattern requirements including, I'm sure you're familiar with what I call, the FBG, the Food Buying Guide for Child Nutrition Programs.

We encourage all programs to speak with the state agency that administers CACFP in your state to determine if a food that is not in the FBG in that guide is eligible for reimbursement. Additional videos are available on HeadStart.gov to support programs with implementing CACFP as well. I do want to mention, based on 1302.44 in our standards, Head Start grant funds may be used to cover any allowable costs for meal services that are not covered by the USDA program.

Foods that are purchased with Head Start grant funds do need to conform with the nutritional requirements in our standards including being high in nutrients and low in saturated fat, sugar and salt. Head Start foods ... This is a question that I think we've gotten. They may also be used to pay for food that is provided to families for consumption at home if those foods have a specific programmatic purpose that's related to family engagement. Next slide.

Let's transition to another federal program that I'm sure everybody here is familiar with, which is the Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children, or as most folks refer to it, WIC. WIC is a public health nutrition program also administered by the USDA that provides education, nutritious foods, breastfeeding support and health care referrals for income-eligible pregnant or postpartum women, infants and children up to age five.

Our programs can support families to determine if they are eligible for WIC and then help them to enroll. There are so many examples of local WIC and Head Start programs working closely together to support the healthy development of our children and families, which really allows our two programs to maximize the use of our resources, of our funding, of our staff, of our space. We really encourage you. There's a link in the in the IM in the guidance to suggested strategies and resources based on examples of where we've seen this being done really well to further enhance partnerships with WIC programs at the state and local levels.

The last slide on this topic, I do want to talk briefly about the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, also a federal program administered by USDA. This one, as you likely know, provides food benefits to low-income families to supplement their grocery budget so they can afford the nutritious food essential to health and well-being.

Now, similar to WIC, Head Start programs can and should support families to determine if they are eligible for SNAP and then help them to enroll. As you probably heard, there was a relatively recent change that we had or a policy clarification that we made such that families who already received SNAP are considered categorically eligible for Head Start services.

That allows for cross-program recruitment, helps eliminate duplicative and burdensome paperwork for families who are already eligible for a federal public assistance benefit, reinforces access to healthy nutrition services for families and children and provides just more opportunities to prioritize education about healthy food consumption including the importance of minimizing ultra-processed and high-sugar foods. I think you've heard lots of my voice today, so I am thrilled to turn it over to my colleague in our Comprehensive Services Training Technical Assistance Division, Marco Beltran.

Dr. Marco Beltran: Thanks, Jessica. Again, I'm Marco Beltran. I'm the health and family engagement branch chief for the Office of Head Start. I'm so happy to be here with you today to provide some tips on fostering enthusiasm for healthy eating and nutrition in your programs. I just want to take a quick moment to thank you for all the hard work that you do, especially as it relates to health and safety and making sure that your children have a safe and healthy environment while in your program. Next slide.

As mentioned, we know that there are a lot of programs already doing amazing work in this area. I'm not going to tell you how long ago it has been, but as a former health coordinator, you can tell by coordinator, that's how I used to identify, who used to work alongside a nutrition coordinator, I know that doing this work well is not easy and comes with challenges.

If your program has not yet been able to successfully provide fresh, whole foods or use family-style meals, I want to take a moment to reflect and think about why that might be. To help us better understand the landscape across the country, we would love if you could take a minute or so to respond to the question on the screen and share in the chat some of the barriers your program might face or might be facing in providing fresh, whole foods or using family-style meals.

As a little side note, I know that this has been mentioned several times, but I love the fact that people are providing stuff in chat and asking some questions. All this information that we get is really useful to us in figuring out how to provide future resources and/or materials to help you do the work that you need to do.

Some of the things that we're seeing in chat is that a big barrier is the rising cost of food. It has been a recent challenge. Another big barrier that some folks are mentioning is staff buy-in, folks trying to engage that and trying to get staff to buy into providing more fresh foods and vegetables in their programs. A lack of funding is another one that's coming up. Some folks are mentioning access to fresh foods and vegetables in rural communities.

Limited resources in geographical areas, I think earlier on someone mentioned the fact that there's some food deserts in some communities, so that makes it really difficult for people to access food. Poor quality of produce in communities, that's something that's been coming up. I would like to encourage you to continue to provide some of the responses, which I said earlier would be really useful to us as we move forward. On the next couple of slides, I'm so happy that Tala is going to be joining me, hopefully engaging in a nice conversation and providing some information to you that might be useful, or we think might be useful. Next slide.

Head Start programs have many options for integrating creative approaches to healthy eating and nutrition services when feeding our infant, toddlers and preschoolers. We hope that as you're doing this, that you're aligning to the Head Start program with the Head Start Performance Standards and the Head Start Early Learning Outcomes Framework, which many of you know as the ELOF.

One of the best ways to foster enthusiasm for healthy eating is to make nutrition education activities fun, make them interactive, hands-on and part of the daily schedule of your interactions with your children. This can be done by incorporating nutrition into your curriculum, by connecting nutrition activities with reading, math or science content. As many of you already do, share with parents. Parents love to know what children are doing in the classroom, what they're learning, and it's a perfect opportunity to extend that learning into the home.

Capt. Hooban: Thank you, Marco. I would love to hear from programs about how they've shared with parents, how they've engaged their staff, if at all. Marco, as they respond, how do you think programs can do this? How can they engage parents and share them and get them interested in nutrition and healthy eating?

Dr. Beltran: Thanks. OK. During family-style meals, you can talk about the sensory aspects of food. You can ask children to describe the taste or the texture of foods. You can use fruits and vegetables with different colors, shapes and textures such as kiwi, pineapples or avocados, or I like to say [foreign] and let children examine both the inside and the outside of the fruits and vegetables.

But just one kind of note, just a quick note, it's important to think about food allergies and to ensure that the activities that you're engaging in with the kids in the classroom are safe for all the kids. Make sure that you know who has a food allergy or doesn't. I think it's a very important note as it relates to just being cautious. That said, you can turn mealtimes into story time, turning broccoli into a tree or carrots into sticks, which can make mealtime kind of fun. But not everything has to be centered around mealtimes. You can incorporate nutrition into imaginative play. You can pretend to be different characters making good food choices.

You can read books with characters making healthy choices. You can set up a dramatic play area with healthy food choices in a kitchen or grocery store or restaurant and talk about selecting nutritious foods. Programs can also have a small garden or indoor plants to show children how the food grows. Once again, connect that back to your curriculum.

We know that programs go on field trips. They can partner with local grocery stores where children visit the produce section. We know that some programs have visited local farms or farmer markets. I really do like the idea of field trips, if possible, to some of these locations.

They're perfect places to introduce children to a variety of fresh, nutritious foods and to allow them to participate in hands-on activities like picking produce or learning about where food comes from. But another little note, if a field trip is not possible, you can also engage and use technology and go on a virtual field trip or virtual farm trip and kind of do some of the similar or kind of think about some similar activities that you can do if you were actually doing the trip in-person. Next slide.

Capt. Hooban: Thanks, Marco. I did jump ahead earlier, but those virtual field trips are amazing. They're still engaging for kids. When thinking about the creative approaches to healthy eating, we want programs to think about the ways to be strategic with meal planning and mealtime so that kids have increased access to and are comfortable with a variety of fresh and healthy ingredients.

We want to create a program culture where families are engaged in meal prepping and children can participate in the process throughout the way. Marco, do you have any creative ways that programs can utilize to approach these goals? I've seen a couple of questions about that being a barrier for staff engagement. If some of you are doing this already, please feel free to drop your ideas in the chat.

Dr. Beltran: Right. I just think that we as Head Start, our programs are in such a unique position to promote positive eating behaviors to our children. It's not just the idea of introducing healthy foods. I'm trying not to go on a whole tangent, but I think one of the things that we're also very well positioned to do, which also helps with healthy eating, is the notion of repeated exposures of healthy foods, which all of us can do constantly to really help kids develop new taste and experience and explore.

In addition to that, some other stuff you can do is planning fun learning experiences like ingredient of the week while children select a healthy ingredient to include in the menu for a week. You can host special days focused on nutrition like food and veggie day or a healthy snack party. I encourage you to ... Jess was talking about this earlier as it relates to CACFP, but I do encourage you to reach out to your state agency and contact them for approved meal and snack ideas that increase variety.

As you mentioned, we want to help families engage children as part of meal prep. To do so, you can see if your families are interested in learning about different ingredients or ways to prepare different foods. You can provide take-home materials that encourage variety in meals. For me, it's always important to consider who you serve and also to consider easy, affordable and healthy recipes that can be part of a family's menu at home. In addition to being at home, as they develop skills, children can participate in setting the table. They can help in washing fruit and vegetables. They can help with mixing ingredients. They can count or measure ingredients. They can identify food colors, and they can learn new vocabulary. Next slide.

Capt. Hooban: Thank you, Marco. I think there have been a few comments in the chat and the Q&A about challenges in access to fresh foods depending on the resources in your communities. But we also know that some programs have gotten creative and are doing amazing work with this and leveraging opportunities and partnerships to help their children and families access fresh foods. Again, I'm sure you could guess. If you could put your ideas, if you've been able to find some partnerships in the chat and the Q&A, and Marco will walk us through some other examples hopefully.

Dr. Beltran: There are a lot of creative ways that programs can approach this. We know that many programs have effectively communicated or connected with local businesses. As I mentioned earlier, this can mean taking field trips to farmers' markets and local farms or grocery stores in order to teach children about fresh fruits and vegetables. Children may be eager to identify new foods that they would like to try, and teachers can use the foods in lesson plans and/or plan for healthy snacks.

As many of you already do, you can continue to connect with other Head Start programs, visit other programs who are integrating learning opportunities that promote health and wellness and healthy eating. Ask parent volunteers or reach out to community volunteer organizations to assist in the creation of an on-site garden where families can pick fresh food and take it home to their families. You can also share information during parent groups and socializations about nutrition. Staff can share books for parents to read with their children about what foods make up each food group and how healthy food fuels the brain and the body.

Let's not forget that, if available in your community, consider establishing relationships with the local food pantries. Someone mentioned earlier, there's a lot of food insecurity, so ensure that you have a process for regularly checking with all our families about their food security and connect them to local food pantry resources as needed. In addition, the one ... I would be remiss if I don't mention the fact that please engage and involve your health and mental health advisory committee. I think that that's an underutilized tool that all of us have in our programs that we have access to, and they can be really helpful in helping you kind of figure out different ways to do some of this work.

Capt. Hooban: Thanks, Marco. As I'm listening to you speak, one important takeaway for me, as always, is how important it is to engage with our families and focus on the communities we serve. Can you walk us through some samples on how best to get family engagement on this work?

Dr. Beltran: Yes. Head Start, we know our families. You know your families. You know who you serve. You know the families' traditions. You know the families' cultures. You know where families come from. You know their situations. It's important to incorporate all of that, to incorporate the traditions, the cultures into healthy meals that you're providing and to help them have them help you figure out what you can do and how you integrate it into your program.

Group events are a great time to serve traditional healthy foods and explore community cultures. As an example, you can offer some sort of rotating in-person or virtual cooking class drawing on healthy local or cultural meals for the families in your program and then making sure that you're providing the ingredients in advance so that the families can participate. Next slide.

Capt. Hooban: To wrap up, many of the strategies we talked about so far actually pertains to children that are eating solid foods. I wanted to make sure we cover breastfeeding and infant nutrition. Breastfeeding is the perfect mix of nutrition for growing babies. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that infants be exclusively breastfed for the first 6 months of life and then breastfed for at least 1 year while they're introduced to complementary foods. Marco, are there any examples of ways programs can help support breastfeeding infants?

Dr. Beltran: Yes, and many of you are already doing this, but we have gotten this question in the past from a lot of programs, is whether they can provide breastfeeding-friendly environments in their spaces. Yes, Head Start programs can provide a breastfeeding-friendly environment by having a nursing room on-site for either enrolled pregnant women or mothers who want to come to the program and breastfeed their enrolled infants. Yes, definitely you can do this.

Then moving forward, I want to thank you, Tala, for helping us learn creative approaches to healthy eating and nutrition services. Let's move to the next slide, please. As we get close to the end here, we really want to make sure that you walk away with some resources. Next slide. On this slide and the next slide, we have a list of resources that you can consider using to enhance and support your nutrition services.

These resources are also included in the recently published IM. This webinar and the slide deck will be made available on HeadStart.gov. You will be able to access all those links there as well. Next slide. Here, we have some more resources including some from the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion. Again, these will also be made available to you on HeadStart.gov. Next slide. I'm going to turn it over to you, Tala.

Capt. Hooban: Thank you, Marco, and thank you to this amazing Office of Head Start team. Thank you all for attending, for taking the time out to attend this webinar. The engagement we saw in the chat and the Q&A was so helpful and will definitely inform future resources, future webinars. If there's anything else you want to add to the chat or the Q&A, please do, and there was an email box that was put up.

If you are experiencing barriers serving fresh, whole foods, we want to hear from you. If you need to think about how to phrase what you want to say, please reach out to that email address. It's OHS_policy@ACF.HHS.gov, or, per usual, you can contact your regional office and let them know. As you saw from today, Head Start programs play a key role in achieving healthy outcomes for children and families, which you already knew because you're running a Head Start program.

This is something we are incredibly proud of and are here to support you through. We want to continue to elevate the work you have all been so creative in implementing. Again, you'll be happy to know that this webinar is just the first in a series of resources we intend to release on this topic.

In upcoming events, we're thinking more of a panel of programs who will be sharing what they've done to be responsive to their community and any innovative approaches they've thought through to support nutrition and healthy eating of children and families. Again, chat, Q&A, email address. We will really take these comments to heart, so really appreciate it. Be on the lookout for more details to come. Thank you, again, for joining us today. It's nice to see you all again. I hope you have a great Wednesday. Have a great afternoon, everyone.