Workgroups

Executive Team:  Membership of the Executive Team includes the Coalition Chair, Chair Elect, and Past Chair, Secretary, Treasurer, Workgroup Team Chairs, and Members At-Large. The Executive Team provides guidance for the overall Coalition and coordinates policy issues, strategy development, research and evaluation among the workgroup teams.

Access to Healthy Foods Team:  In too many neighborhoods, families are surrounded by high calorie, low nutritional value options with minimal, if any, access to affordable healthy foods, including fresh fruits & vegetables. Leading national organizations have focused on communities’ essential front-line role and actions that local governments can take to prevent obesity.

The Access to Healthy Foods Team has used Healthy People 2020 guidelines to formulate its areas of focus, including:

• Improving access to local fruits, vegetables and dairy, especially through the Farm to School Program,
• Providing education about healthy, affordable food preparation through the Cooking Matters and Shopping Matters programs, and
• Promoting breastfeeding for at least one year after birth and supporting mothers who choose to breastfeed.

Built Environment Team:  A lack of physical activity is one of the leading contributors to obesity and poor health. In many neighborhoods, there are not sufficient, safe places for walking, bike riding, or physical play. Communities have a front-line role when it comes to the community environment.

The institute of Medicine also identifies most promising action steps for increasing physical activity:

• Plan, build, and maintain a network of sidewalks and street crossings that connect schools, parks, and other destinations.
• Adopt community policing strategies that improve safety and security of streets and park use, especially in higher-crime neighborhoods.
• Collaborate with schools to develop and implement a Safe Routes to Schools program to increase the number of children safely walking and bicycling to school.
• Build and maintain parks and playgrounds that are safe and attractive for playing, and in close proximity to residential areas.
• Institute policy standards for play space, physical equipment, and duration of play in preschool, afterschool, and childcare programs.

Early Childhood & Schools Team:  Programs are being developed across the state that improve access to healthy foods and increased physical activity for pre-school children and in schools. Models and funding are available to GHCs. Some of these important programs include:

• Better Beginnings, Arkansas’s Quality Rating Improvement Systems.
• School-Based Health Center (SBHC) grants to provide mental health and physical health on the school campus in order to increase students’ access to these services.
• Joint Use Agreement (JUA) grants provide incentives to schools in partnership with their community to share use of sports and recreation facilities.

Health Care Team:  The ArCOP Health Care Team activities include promoting motivational interviewing in health care settings and health care advocacy, utilizing best practices (including Institute of Medicine recommendations), offering continued medical education (CME) training to health care professionals, and implementing strategies for reimbursement for services.

By engaging health providers and collaborating with employers and other purchasers of health coverage, along with insurance companies and other payers, the long-term health care expense resulting from obesity and related chronic disease will be reduced. ArCOP’s Health Care Team members have an individual interest in this issue who represent public and private health care organizations around the state.

Social Marketing:  ArCOP’s Social Marketing Team provides promotional support for the ArCOP statewide coalition and the Growing Healthy Communities sites. The term “social marketing” refers to promoting ideas, attitudes and behaviors, not for the benefit the marketer, but to benefit the target audience and general society instead. Products from the team include arkansasobesity.org and branding resources.

Worksite Wellness:  A lack of physical activity is one of the leading contributors to obesity and poor health. In many neighborhoods, there are not sufficient, safe places for walking, bike riding, or physical play. Communities have a front-line role when it comes to the community environment.

The institute of Medicine also identifies most promising action steps for increasing physical activity:

• Plan, build, and maintain a network of sidewalks and street crossings that connect schools, parks, and other destinations.
• Adopt community policing strategies that improve safety and security of streets and park use, especially in higher-crime neighborhoods.
• Collaborate with schools to develop and implement a Safe Routes to Schools program to increase the number of children safely walking and bicycling to school.
• Build and maintain parks and playgrounds that are safe and attractive for playing, and in close proximity to residential areas.
• Institute policy standards for play space, physical equipment, and duration of play in preschool, afterschool, and childcare programs.