Development of Evaluation and Capacity Building Plans for the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools' Local Wellness Policy

Research shows that students who eat a healthy diet and regularly engage in physical activity show improved behavior and academic performance in schools. However, many children in North Carolina, and across the nation, are not healthy: rates of childhood obesity and overweight are high and continue to rise. Schools provide a unique opportunity for interventions to improve healthy eating and physical activity, and there is ample evidence to show that school-based interventions are effective in improving students' health. For this reason, in 2004, Congress mandated that all schools participating in the National School Lunch Program must develop and implement a Local Wellness Policy (LWP), as well as a plan to evaluate the policy. Our Capstone team worked with Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools (CHCCS) to design an evaluation plan to measure implementation of their LWP and a capacity building plan to increase CHCCS' ability to successfully implement the policy. First, we conducted a literature review to learn more about LWPs and their implementation across the country. Next, we created a process evaluation plan and a survey tool to collect information from stakeholders to measure LWP implementation annually. Throughout the project, we attended monthly meetings of the Healthy Schools Advisory Council (HSAC) to interact with stakeholders and update them on our progress. We assisted school nurses at three schools in applying for national awards to recognize their wellness efforts. Lastly, we created a capacity building plan to help the district improve its ability to fully and consistently implement the LWP. These Capstone deliverables expand CHCCS' capacity to evaluate the implementation of its LWP and use the results to make improvements, thus making progress toward the ultimate goal of improving student and staff health. As a result of this project, the Capstone team gained knowledge and experience in designing evaluations and writing clearly for a wide audience. By disseminating our deliverables through CHCCS and online in the form of a public Drop Box folder, the team added to the field of resources on LWP implementation, evaluation, and capacity-building, allowing future projects to use our deliverables to inform their own work.Master of Public Healt