The Butte Cluster was awarded with a UC ANR STAR Team Award in June 2018 for their significant contribution to UC ANR's Healthy Families and Communities Strategic Initiative through the coordination and implementation of the UC CalFresh Nutrition Education Program (NEP) and the Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program (EFNEP) in Butte, Glenn, Colusa, Sutter, and Yuba Counties (Butte Cluster hereinafter).
The Butte Cluster staff work in collaboration leveraging internal and external resources to meet the needs of their communities. EFNEP and UC CalFresh staff have provided adult nutrition education through EFNEP lesson series coupled with UC CalFresh money management lessons series at Family Resource Centers and School Readiness Programs in multiple counties. In Federal, Fiscal Year 2017 (FFY 2017), the Butte Cluster nutrition program collaboration between EFNEP and UC CalFresh was strengthened with a partnership at the Farmworker Institute of Education & Leadership Development (FIELD). This partnership resulted in a program integration design that is sustainable and provides significant benefits to enrolled high school students. FIELD provides education and training to immigrants, farm workers, and low-skilled workers in rural settings to give them confidence to realize their dreams. Completing their high school education is an integral part to their future success. EFNEP, UC CalFresh and FIELD have a shared vision for improving the lives of low-income families through sustainable partnerships. Through this partnership, FIELD's text book curriculum now includes the EFNEP Eating Smart Being Active lessons, and the UC CalFresh Making Every Dollar Count lesson series. Successful completion of these UC nutrition and money management curricula fulfills the health and life skills credit requirements for students to earn their high school diploma and participate in FIELD's annual high school graduation. Students earn a total of 5 high school credits for completing all lessons. This collaboration highlights the flexibility and commitment of Butte Cluster staff to work together to provide needed resources to our target population and strengthens a community partnership with a program implementation model that is innovative.
During FFY 2017, EFNEP in the Butte Cluster reached 364 families with 337 individuals graduating from the program, yielding a 93% graduation rate. This was a 15.4% increase in the number individuals graduating from the program from the previous year. Of these 337 graduates, 93% improved their food resource management practices, 96% improved their nutrition practices, 89% improved their food safety practices, and 68% made positive changes in their physical activity behaviors.
In FFY 2017, the Butte Cluster's UC CalFresh NEP made significant progress on the overarching Integrated Work Plan objectives in each of the five counties. The UC CalFresh NEP continued to implement successful adult, youth, and family nutrition education and provided related resources to low-income families and children serving 104 partner programs/schools. Overall, 17,559 students and 1,872 adults received direct education, which increased program reach over the previous year by 10,104 direct youth participants and 1,559 direct adult participants. No Prep Teacher Education Kits were developed by program staff to be used to implement series-based nutrition education and were highly utilized by extenders. Through the “extender model” approach, training and technical assistance was provided to teachers and UC Master Gardeners resulting in the delivery of 6,423 hours of direct nutrition, garden, and physical activity education. This approach requires an immense amount of coordination and collaboration with local school districts and community agencies. The Butte Cluster has been successful in implementing the extender model approach because of the time and effort that our educators devote to establishing and maintaining relationships with individuals in the community. Providing training and technical assistance and implementing the extender model continues to make an impact on adults, youth, and families in the Butte Cluster.
Direct education continues to be the foundation for comprehensive programming throughout the Butte Cluster, but as we move away from UC CalFresh nutrition educators primarily providing the direct education and move toward teachers taking on a greater role in implementing the direct education, it allows our educators to free up more of their time and focus their efforts on the broader context of policy, systems, and environmental work. In FFY 2017, the UC CalFresh Nutrition Education Program also reached 66,971 adults and youth through community events such as health fairs, agriculture education events, immigration workshops, newsletters and social media.Intensive staff training, orientation and on-boarding of staff provided by the Butte Clusters Leadership Team also contributed to the increase in reach and expansion of programming.
The Butte Cluster is extremely fortunate to have such a talented group of educators. These individuals are committed to each other, their community, and the success of UCCE programming. Since becoming fully staffed, the team has consistently worked with a high level of cooperation, innovation, creativity and organization. The Butte Cluster's Nutrition Education Team is an exceptionally effective and cooperative team that has significantly exceeded the goals and objectives of the department and exemplified extraordinary teamwork.
To learn more about the 21 individuals and 11 teams who received the UC ANR STAR Awards, CLICK HERE.
