A Cycle of Care - Unity Health Care

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Improving Family Health with We Can! On Wednesday nights, families visit Unity’s Upper Cardozo Health Center to learn how to take charge of their health. The Wednesday evening classes are modeled on the We Can! program, a curriculum developed by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to address pediatric obesity through community intervention. We Can! — Ways to Enhance Children’s Activity & Nutrition — is a national child obesity prevention program. It is designed to teach parents and other caregivers about nutrition, exercise, and other aspects of a healthy life. The classes involve the entire family with activities geared toward adults and children ages 7–13. Upper Cardozo became a We Can! site in 2008, and since then, Physician Assistants Jessica Wallace, Brianna Katz, and Claire Rosché, as well as other staff members, have adapted it to suit the needs of Upper Cardozo’s patients. “The NIH model is a curriculum of four classes, with each class focusing on a different topic related to pediatric obesity, such as eating more fruits and vegetables, increasing exercise, and decreasing screen time, including television, computer, and video games,” Wallace explains. “We started in 2008 with a four-week series, but when it was over, people wanted to keep coming.” Wallace and her team responded to patients’ requests by expanding the We Can! program and making it an ongoing series. Participants can come for one class or many, they can attend consecutive weeks or periodic sessions — and they always will learn something and have a good time. Some Unity families have attended for a full year. The team also expanded the age range for participation. While the original NIH curriculum targets 7–13 year olds, the Unity version is for 5–15 year olds. The Unity program also talks to parents about their own health and their struggles with weight so participants can take a family-centered approach to being healthier. Engaging families, measuring results, and celebrating success The Wednesday evening sessions are designed to be fun and active for the entire family. Each evening focuses on an educational theme, such as the sugar content in beverages or ways to get more exercise. On a typical Wednesday night, participants will break into groups by age to explore the theme. Adults might have a conversation or see a cooking demonstration, while the kids do arts and crafts projects or puzzles that build on the key ideas. Or, the evening might include a grocery store scavenger hunt. Children and their parents will have different activities, but they all will be learning how to read food labels and make healthy choices. “The approach we are using makes sense for our patients because it can take a while for ideas and new habits to set in,” Wallace says. “It’s easy to tell families to eat more vegetables and be more active, but there obviously are barriers to making those changes. We move beyond the script and engage in a discussion about how to do it.” 4 unity health care
The Unity program provides a supportive group environment and shows families how to introduce new habits over time. For example, they might change from whole to 2 percent milk and then eventually try skim milk. The group members also support each other through a range of life events. “Our families also go through a lot of instability that makes it temporarily hard to stay on track,” Wallace adds. “If someone loses their job, we work through it with them.” Wallace knows what works with participating families because the staff tracks results. While not every person has lost weight, Wallace and her team have seen increases in health behaviors across the board. Many participants have made lifestyle changes. For example, on average, adult participants reported drinking 47 percent less soda while eating 36 percent more fruit and 40 percent more vegetables. Adults’ average minutes of exercise activity increased 57 percent while hours of television watching decreased 29 percent. Children reported similar changes — an average 62 percent decrease in soda consumption, 69 percent increase in vegetable consumption, and 30 percent increase in daily physical activity time. In addition, some participants made dramatic transformations in their weight. On average, child participants maintained stable body mass index (BMI) percentiles, avoiding a trend of weight gain over time. Some individual children lost weight as appropriate. Average adult BMI averages decreased slightly, but some adult participants lost more than 40 pounds. One diabetic participant improved her health enough to manage her diabetes without medication. Based on these successes, Unity’s We Can! program staff was invited to the White House to meet with First Lady Michelle Obama to discuss the program’s approach to preventing childhood obesity. In addition, the National Association of Community Health Centers (NACHC) presented the 2009 Innovative Research in Primary Care Award to Wallace, Katz, and Rosché. The award recognized the success of We Can! in connecting with patients, improving health knowledge, and encouraging behavior changes that promote good health. “We applaud Unity for focusing on long-term changes that will improve their patients’ health and quality of life,” says Tom Van Coverden, president and CEO, NACHC. “They are using data to track progress of their We Can! participants and identify the approaches that have the greatest success — and then implementing the program in ways that make it inviting and effective for their patients.” Keeping up with demand Unity’s We Can! program expanded in response to what patients wanted — a longitudinal program instead of a four-week curriculum. As a result, each week’s activities have to be different, so Wallace and her team search for innovative approaches to teach about healthy eating and active living as well as partners who can add something new. For example, the Sister to Sister Foundation, which focuses on women’s heart health, supported a series of four classes that culminated in a Bike for the Heart event in DC. The organization donated healthy snacks, coordinated speakers on preventing heart disease, provided tickets and transportation to a Washington Mystics game, and gave scooters and helmets to children who completed the classes and participated in the biking event. “And even the Mystics game was an opportunity to learn about healthy eating,” Wallace recalls. “We chose the healthiest sporting event food and talked about how to find the healthiest options wherever you are.” 2008 AND 2009 annual reports 5
Page 1 and 2: A Cycle of Care 2008 and 2009 Annua
Page 3 and 4: Celebrating the Cycle of Care A Mes
Page 5: Highlights of 2008-09 include: •
Page 9 and 10: Sally*, a 37-year-old homeless woma
Page 11 and 12: grants fund a family planning educa
Page 13 and 14: Boyd, Ms. Lark Boyde, Mr. Dion Boyk
Page 15 and 16: Parish, Ms. Rechetta D. Parraway, M
Page 17 and 18: Board of Directors Franklyn Baker C
Page 19 and 20: Mission Unity Health Care, Inc., of

A Cycle of Care - Unity Health Care

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