Partnering for success and sustainability in community-based child obesity intervention: seeking to help families ACT!

Abstract

Sustaining community-based obesity interventions for families represents an ongoing challenge. Many initially grant-funded initiatives lack a sustainable model to continue. After initial grant funding ended, we continued a partnership between Seattle Children's Hospital and YMCA of Greater Seattle to enhance and expand a community-based family obesity program, "ACT! Actively Changing Together." We used principles of continuous process improvement, community-based participatory research, and the RE-AIM framework to successfully transition from a grant-funded to a community-supported program. Our pilot evaluation demonstrated promising results in parent behaviors, youth quality of life, ongoing family participation at the Y, and youth body mass index.