Background/Purpose: State and national policies have called upon afterschool programs (ASP) to enhance children's physical activity and nutrition (PAaN). The primary responsibility for meeting policy goals rests upon ASP frontline staff. ASPs, however, are struggling to meet policy goals. The behaviors of frontline staff associated with PAaN are, therefore, crucial to whether policy goals are met. A comprehensive review was conducted to identify ASP staff behaviors related to achieving PAaN policy goals to inform the development of a direct observation system (DO).
Method: A systematic review of ASP policies, “best practices” documents, and expert (N=12) opinion (researchers in PAaN with children or practitioners in ASPs) elicited via a Delphi Method identified frontline staff behaviors associated PAaN. Additional behaviors corresponding with the 5M's for promoting PAaN in ASPs were also identified (mission, manage, motivate, monitor, maximize).
Analysis/Results: The review and experts identified 12 PA and 7 N staff promotion behaviors. Examples of these included: modification of activities to maximize PA participation, use of evidence-based curriculum, availability of equipment, modeling healthy behaviors, and verbal promotion of PAaN.
Conclusions: The behaviors identified are a critical link between PAaN policies and improvements in children's PAaN. These behaviors can serve as the foundation for the development of a DO system focused on frontline staff promotion behaviors; an area which is absent in current literature. Ongoing work is being conducted to incorporate these behaviors into a systematic observation instrument and link them with children's PAaN in ASPs.