Paul Treadwell
Welcome to Extension Out Loud, a podcast from Cornell Cooperative Extension. I'm Paul Treadwell.
For many of us a trip to the grocery store today is an exercise in balancing budget against nutritional need. This math is even more challenging for historically underserved populations. And our episode today highlights the expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program or EFNEP.
In conversation with Carol Parker, nutrition and health program leader, and Cynthia Fourier, community nutrition educator for Cornell University Cooperative Extension in New York City. EFNEP is federally funded and present in every state and US territory. And this year marks the 55th anniversary of the program. EFNEP program participants learn how to make food choices to improve the nutritional quality of meals they serve. This learning process uses hands on workshops and involves both adults and children.
Our conversation today looks at the history of EFNEP the importance of partnerships with schools and community organizations and delivering programs, the long term impacts of this program for participants so join us for this enlightening and hopeful conversation
If you could just both tell me who you are and what you do, and we'll take it from there.
Carol
I'm Carol Parker and currently I am the Program Leader for the nutrition and health program in Cornell University Cooperative Extension New York City. And I'm also the Regional Coordinator for the food nutrition education in communities program out of campus for the metropolitan region, which includes New York City, and Nassau and Suffolk County.
Cynthia
Thank you for this opportunity. And my name is Cynthia for years, I been working for Cornell University for 11 years, as a community dedicated to working with bearings, youth and seniors.
Paul Treadwell
So we're here today to really talk about the EFNEP program. In early June, you're going to be celebrating the 50th anniversary of EFNEP. Now, one of the things when we start talking about Cooperative Extension programs is we have a lot of acronyms. So, Carol, could you please tell us what exactly is F snap?
Carol
EFNEP is an acronym that spells the expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program. It is a federally funded program to the US Department of Agriculture and now nipa National Institute for Food and Agriculture, and was considered and conceptualized as an expansion of nutrition education to support the other USDA programs that actually provided direct food and or food access, which would be our at the time that it was created food stamps, and WIC and other kinds of nutrition programs that provided both with either access to food through WIC at our with food stamps, or for people that purchase food. So at the time when those kinds of programs are developed, the education component was that there, and it was determined that folks were still running out of food at the end of the month. And so this notion of an education arm of the USDA, focus primarily on nutrition was what sort of sparked the EFNEP SNAP program. And that is what we've been doing were the education arm of the USDA Food, food and nutrition services, our food program, and we are targeted to work with parents or caregivers up pivot caregivers of families with children. So that's the unique element of our program to work with parents or caregivers of young children. So
Paul Treadwell
can you tell me a little bit about what that work looks like? What when you guys go out into the community? What does it look like when you're running an ethnic program?
Carol
Well, historically, we started out as a home-based home visiting program, where we actually visited people's homes, we were working with knocking on doors and doing a lot of that we did that in New York City too. But about 3035, almost 40 years ago, we switched to conducting primarily. And so we do nutrition education workshop series. We're a series-based program because we are very impacted behavior change. Our goal is for behavior change. And for behavior impact AD, the research does show that over time, and with multiple interventions, that we can impact long term behavior change. So we go and we work with groups, we use approved curricula, and we deliver our nutrition education in a group series. This these groups are conducted in partnering agencies, our primary partners in New York City, our schools, that's where you find parents of children, Headstart programs, community-based organizations, faith based organization, but schools are our primary partners, and we work with the parents in the schools. And we offer this series. The series also include collecting data on behavior, behaviors, and dietary intake in a pre pre data collection process. And that also collecting the data at the end and a post data collection. So we are able to assess impact and behavior change over time. So we do that with adults. And we also do it with a youth audience. We work with third to 12th graders, and we are able to do a pre and post assessment of behavior also with them over a shortened series. With our adults, we aim for about an eight week series with our youth we work with about a six week series. And our educators go to these location. And they conduct the workshop series with all of our partnering agencies. And that's a part of what our celebration is about this. Whenever we celebrate either the 50th or the 55th. We are really celebrating our partners, because the model that we're using is that we can't do this work without them. because they help us to recruit, engage and provide space for us to offer our workshop series. And with that, we go to them do the series. And so we value those partnerships. And we're recognizing those partners at this in this was the fifth celebration. So there
Paul Treadwell
I want to bring you in conversation. So what is your role in in running EFNEP programs.
Cynthia
My role is as a community educator, it okay their communities. Working, as I mentioned at the beginning was the you with the parents and grandparents. So teaching them how to make healthy eating habits. Okay. During the glasses, we have a workshop that is for a weeks. So during that time, I teach them how to prepare healthy recipe. That is one of the challenges that we have here in New York City, and I believe all over the world, because is for is very expensive. But I'm working here, you probably know your is majority of them, they are a busy life. And sometimes they don't have enough time to prepare food at home. And they prefer Hey, let me just buy something outside. So during this workshop, I had the opportunity to teach them how to prepare locals recipe, the list is recipe and easy to prepare. Sometime we have ingredients and majority of the ingredient that we have is this thing ingredient that they have at hand, we teach them how to get some resources, like going to the food pantry, and get food for free, or maybe also have to prepare a choppy lease when they fall to the supermarket. So that's just one of the things that I like. And when I'm working with a youth, I had the opportunity to work with the little one can be the third fifth grader, or maybe an app, and they'd be part of the food preparation tool. And they'd be like, Okay, let's go to play like a chef. And they treat preparing, mixing the ingredients. And sometimes they have the parent, I have a lot of challenges because my god, children, they don't like birthday vegetable, we know that. But um, when we prepare the style, and they are part of the recipe, the food preparation, they say, Oh, can I have more? Can I have that I have more? And it's very nice. It's a beautiful moment who is Participant there
Paul Treadwell
you bring up an interesting thing. This is a very hands on workshop. They're not just sitting in chairs listening to you guys, are they? This
Cynthia
is exactly that's what they do. We just have a lot of activity, we are not going to be sitting and just listening. No, it's like a two hour that we are moving preparing food but are also doing the physical activity. And this is another challenge that we have here in New York City, my God, other people, they don't have the time to do the physical activity. Why? Because maybe they're coming home late, maybe because they tire they don't have enough time for many reasons. So during the workshop, besides the lesson beside them for activity, also we had a physical activity.
Paul Treadwell
So just to follow up on a question that when I was thinking about this came to mind just teaching people how to create healthy meals how to quickly and easily take what they have, is there an issue with access to healthy foods in a lot of the neighborhoods you work with? Or has that sort of shifted over the past decade.
Carol
It continues that issue in terms of access to quality and affordable foods in the neighborhoods in the education that Cynthia and the educators do a part of it is really urging families to pursue every aspect of increasing access. We talk about school meals as an access to foods for the children to have healthy meals, we have summer meals coming home, we talk about food pantries that they might have available. We do have in some instances where a Farmers Market Nutrition Program lady could have access. And when they go into the stores where they are that they have access to show how to choose among the best that's offered. So that's the whole point of what we do. One of the things that have been happening in our communities lately is there has been a lot of street food vending, with vendors who are selling a lot of produce, and they actually produce that affordable. And it's amazing to see the lack with affordable food is available and accessible, how much it's purchased and consumed. So in some of our neighborhoods now even close to where our offices, our streets are lined with these food vendors, and people are shopping. And they're getting lots of produce for their monies. So it's one of these things that reminded me that if people have access, and it's affordable, they'll buy it.
Paul Treadwell
Yeah, right. Carol to you mentioned partners and the 55th anniversary celebration is going to focus on your partners. So who are some of your key partners that help you implement these programs? And how do you make connections to new partners? How do people find out about EFNEP and participate?
Carol
One of the things and that's one of the beautiful things about our 55 year history and certainly in what we do In New York City, I usually like to describe us as being rooted and planted in the neighborhood, the communities that we're working in, or the communities that we've been working in for over 50 years, we've been there. A lot of other community based organizations and programs have come and have gone. But we are still there. We have invested in the communities in several ways. Number one, we have helped we have offices in in several of the locations. We have an office in the South Bronx, we used to have an office in Harlem, we have an office in Brooklyn, we have an office in downtown Jamaica in Queens. So we're located in the communities that we serve. Additionally, we hire the program participants that graduate out of the program, and they live there. So we're grounded again. We have educators who live in Far Rockaway, Brooklyn neighborhoods in which we're working by the we hire the program graduate, and they plant them again. So it's like a process of planting and reaping the harvest. With COVID, having such a negative impact on so many things, out of COVID, I felt that we had this recognition of just the need to get back out into the community. And it happened this past summer. And in giving back to the community, I went with the staff that many of the program activities that they hosted, they had community fairs, and they they had back to school events. They had welcoming new immigrants into the neighborhood type of event, truly community outreach events. At those events, Paul, I met so many of our program graduate, who were no agency staff, people working in gold, working in Hispanic programs, working with the Red Cross, working in so many of our affiliated agencies that I was so blown away, they would tell me about who their educator was, and what has happened to them and how they were motivated. I'm thinking, Oh, my goodness, this truly, we're looking at building the capacity of these families that we worked with. And I was able to see the results. It's just pause. It's almost over 30 years, I've been doing this work. I was so overwhelmed. I was like, oh my goodness, what we believe that and invested in was truly manifesting. So we've built these years of relationships, we've grown and individuals, okay, they've gotten back into it. They're working with new agencies. So we are establishing the connections. And as our educators continue with their underground, work with directly working with participants and agencies that we work with. Our staff, supervisors, and our program coordinators are working with the administrative level. We're working with the directors of the division of use and community development. We're working at the district office in the schools. We're working with the Department of Education program directors that are dealing with our new immigrants in New York City that are working special initiatives and projects. We are working with the coordinators of the seller Farmers Market program of the Green Market. So while we are working at the administrative and leadership level of our partnering agencies in New York City, are educators are working with the grassroots working directly with our program partners. And we're building this connection, since you just told me that when she went to one of our community-based organizations to talk about the summer program, the coordinator mentioned to her, I met your supervisors at a presentation that was targeted to our youth work. And so we're working together and reaching out in these multiple ways to reach our families and our communities. So I am just feeling so good about this raishin at this milestone year for us, because I feel as if that program that we planted is no it really is blooming and the harvest is there. Right.
Paul Treadwell
Cynthia, I want to get back to you. You said you've been doing this work for 11 years now. Yeah. Have you seen this transition from program participant to a staff person working for one of the organizations and can you talk a little bit about their journey?
Cynthia
I think I have a good sample and last Saturday I was working a angsana activity now sometime we have in the park. We call that Hellfire right? One of my participants she take my class many years ago many years ago. I was a cheap King and I said if I can long with chicken be hog I chicken with the family. Just say you remember that's just my son. So one other thing is way more We have a participant and they say you know where I learned this for you because of you, I make this chain with my family because of you because of the program. And one of the thing about the program is not only and the food preparation is not only the exercise is not only the be learning is the passion that we share with the participant is the respect that we show to them is the welcome that we give to them. I can now this cry how emotion that I spend to have the opportunity to be working for Columbia University for many years. So when kind of mentioned some participant become a community it okay though. I am 107. So I start from my from the farmers market, it was was a good opportunity, because I had the opportunity to learn the about the community, talking with different people with different beliefs. So after I pass my tie, I think I the maybe like two or three years during the pharma market, because that is only a part time job for the sister.
Paul Treadwell
So Carol 55 years, do you have any ballpark a number about how many people have been impacted by EFNEP programming in New York City over 55 years?
Carol
In New York City? So I was actually was thinking about that question. Typically we're we work on a basis in terms of educators have a caseload expectation of a number of people that they need to work with. So our caseload has been based on in terms of FTE, but on an average, we've talked about it, let's say in the last 10 years, that average we would reach about five to 7000 adult participants per year, except for COVID. You know what happened, we COVID, we're just on the recovery process, and about that many use. And as I was saying, our intent was reaching our what we call it, the gatekeeper of the nutrition and health in the family, which is usually the primary here give up the children is that impact that we we multiply by the participant, the number of people in the family, because that gatekeeper is the person who is establishing the behavior practices, putting things into place, and impacting on the total behavior and eating habits of the whole family. So we have a multiplier effect through that. So our participant, then we reach our average of that mini, per year and adult. And we multiply that by the average family size. Granted, family size has been dwindling over the last couple of years. So our family size, I remember we thought it was closer to five I know it's closer to three. But that multiplies that tremendously work? No, that is in our nutrition education series. We also do what we call awareness, education, and indirect education. When we do have events where we only see in people or one, we're seeing them what when we do healthy or sweet baby showers we do back to school event. We do Farmers Market work, when we're doing those kinds of events. In an average season, a farmers market season we can reach anywhere from 18 to 20,000 people. And then our season of health figures, which are typically in the spring and in the fall, we could reach anywhere from 10 to 15,000. So those events, we consider them to be indirect and just simply awareness. But we introduce people to some simple concepts, where we know that behavior is affected by the process and the interaction that they have with us. So our most impactful one certainly is our sugar sweetened beverage, understanding how many teaspoons of sugar are in soda, those agreed. And then also when we do work in terms of fruits and vegetables, how to increase inputs, add some color to that we do our meat, the vegetable, or meat, the fruit kinds of activities. So we have that level of impact when we do indirect education. And then also when we're doing direct edge.
Paul Treadwell
There's a lot of linguistic diversity in New York City. What language is her ethnic programs presented in the city? Do you have a broad spectrum? Or is it fairly focused?
Carol
It's broad, and it's getting broader. We have all these tremendous, we have a large number of staff who are bilingual in Spanish and English. And over the years, we recognize that their linguistic needs as you said, Jean, so we all we've had a long term staff person who's also Haitian, Creole and French. We actually have an educator who spoke three languages English, French, and Spanish. And so we've had that we've recognized the need to reach our East Asian population. So we had one point hired staff from Korea, we had Chinese educators who speak Mandarin and Cantonese. We recognize also that is a South Asian a new emerging need for that. So we've hired an educator who speaks bangle and Indu and Urdu I think so. So we've been responsive and In outreaching, and recruiting and hiring individuals t
