BELLOWS FALLS — A set of assessment and planning processes developed by local leaders brought together by Meeting Waters YMCA is helping people who live in Windham County eat healthier and move more.
The Healthy Communities Coalition of Windham County, an initiative of Meeting Waters YMCA, is offering five different assessment and planning tools to leaders in a wide variety of systems within our communities. The most comprehensive, the Community Healthy Living Index (CHLI), is a resource designed by YMCA of the USA with researchers from Stanford University, Harvard University, St. Louis University, and a prestigious national advisory task force.
Through a series of detailed questions and a discussion guide, CHLI enables leaders and stakeholders to assess environments within schools, afterschool child care programs, early childhood development programs, neighborhoods, work sites and the entire community, to measure their supports for physical activity and healthy eating.
Other assessment and planning resources being made available by HCC are a Farm-to-School Assessment, a Community Food Assessment, a walkability and rideability audit that has been designed to be used by kids, families and elders, and the Vermont Department of Health's “Healthy Retailers Store Scan” which will be coordinated with the prevention coalitions throughout the county.
In the first two months of offering their assessment and planning services, HCC members have worked with a number of different organizations and communities. Early Education Services in Brattleboro, the Town of Rockingham, Grace Cottage Hospital, and SEVCA have used the CHLI process. Several area schools including Newbrook Elementary, Rockingham Central School, Academy School, and Bellows Falls Union High School will be conducting a Farm-to-School assessment.
Transition Putney is coordinating a Community Food Assessment as is Our Place Drop-In Center in Bellows Falls. The walkability and rideability audit, being created by Windham Regional Commission planner and HCC member Kendall Gifford, and the Healthy Retailer Store Scan are being made available within the next month.
The aim of all of the assessment and planning processes is to aid community leaders in charting a course for environmental and policy change strategies, identifying and removing barriers to healthy eating and physical activity, and expanding opportunities for healthy living.
Creating change at the policy level is an explicit goal of the Healthy Communities Coalition. Research has shown that policy approaches may be especially important in supporting healthy lifestyles because they benefit a greater number of people than programmatic approaches that aim to change individual behavior one person at a time.
For example, research has demonstrated that providing appropriate infrastructure leads to more people biking or walking to local destinations like schools and markets; that healthy and active children learn more effectively and experience greater academic achievement; and that having vendors of fresh fruits and vegetables located near housing leads to greater consumption by kids and adults.
“We're helping diverse groups of stakeholders within an organization or community to assess their supports for healthy lifestyles of their constituents and then make low or no-cost improvements in areas that are most important to them,” said HCC founder and Meeting Waters YMCA Executive Director Steve Fortier. “They are doing this because they want to make the healthy choice the easy choice. As more and more organizations and a community as a whole do this, the healthy choice will be the easy choice where people live, work, learn and play.”
Brattleboro is the “poster community” for what is possible when many individuals, groups and a community all take a look at themselves. Two years ago, with a grant from the Vermont Department of Health, Meeting Waters YMCA and the Fit & Healthy Kids Coalition facilitated CHLIs within a number of schools, after-school programs, child care centers, businesses, neighborhood associations and the community-at-large. Today, there are far greater supports for the healthy choice throughout the community and even the re-writing of the Town Plan has been influenced by the outcomes.
The Healthy Communities Coalition is in its second year of a three year partnership with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), YMCA of the USA, and over twenty other national health organizations. Funding for HCC's assessment and planning services as well as other efforts has been received from the Holt Fund and the CDC. For more information about HCC assessment and planning services, contact coordinator Josh Davis at [email protected] or 802-579-8199.