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Healthy conversation skills: increasing competence and confidence in front-line staff.

Healthy conversation skills: increasing competence and confidence in front-line staff.
Healthy conversation skills: increasing competence and confidence in front-line staff.
Objective (i) To assess change in confidence in having conversations that support parents with healthy eating and physical activity post-training. (ii) To assess change in staff competence in using ‘open discovery’ questions (those generally beginning with ‘how’ and ‘what’ that help individuals reflect and identify barriers and solutions) post-training. (iii) To examine the relationship between confidence and competence post-training. Design A pre–post evaluation of ‘Healthy Conversation Skills’, a staff training intervention. Setting Sure Start Children's Centres in Southampton, England. Subjects A total of 145 staff working in Sure Start Children's Centres completed the training, including play workers (43 %) and community development or family support workers (35 %). Results We observed an increase in median confidence rating for having conversations about healthy eating and physical activity (both P < 0·001), and in using ‘open discovery’ questions (P < 0·001), after staff attended the ‘Healthy Conversation Skills’ training. We also found a positive relationship between the use of ‘open discovery’ questions and confidence in having conversations about healthy eating post-training (r = 0·21, P = 0·01), but a non-significant trend was observed for having conversations about physical activity (r = 0·15, P = 0·06). Conclusions The ‘Healthy Conversation Skills’ training proved effective at increasing the confidence of staff working at Sure Start Children's Centres to have more productive conversations with parents about healthy eating. Wider implementation of these skills may be a useful public health nutrition capacity building strategy to help community workers support families with young children to eat more healthy foods.
1368-9800
700-707
Black, Christina
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Lawrence, W.
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Craddock, S.
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Ntani, G.
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Tinati, T.
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Jarman, Megan
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Begum, Rufia
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Inskip, H.
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Cooper, C.
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Barker, M.
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Baird, J.
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Black, Christina
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Lawrence, W.
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Craddock, S.
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Ntani, G.
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Tinati, T.
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Jarman, Megan
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Begum, Rufia
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Inskip, H.
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Cooper, C.
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Barker, M.
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Baird, J.
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Black, Christina, Lawrence, W., Craddock, S., Ntani, G., Tinati, T., Jarman, Megan, Begum, Rufia, Inskip, H., Cooper, C., Barker, M. and Baird, J. (2014) Healthy conversation skills: increasing competence and confidence in front-line staff. Public Health Nutrition, 17 (3), 700-707. (doi:10.1017/S1368980012004089). (PMID:22989477)

Record type: Article

Abstract

Objective (i) To assess change in confidence in having conversations that support parents with healthy eating and physical activity post-training. (ii) To assess change in staff competence in using ‘open discovery’ questions (those generally beginning with ‘how’ and ‘what’ that help individuals reflect and identify barriers and solutions) post-training. (iii) To examine the relationship between confidence and competence post-training. Design A pre–post evaluation of ‘Healthy Conversation Skills’, a staff training intervention. Setting Sure Start Children's Centres in Southampton, England. Subjects A total of 145 staff working in Sure Start Children's Centres completed the training, including play workers (43 %) and community development or family support workers (35 %). Results We observed an increase in median confidence rating for having conversations about healthy eating and physical activity (both P < 0·001), and in using ‘open discovery’ questions (P < 0·001), after staff attended the ‘Healthy Conversation Skills’ training. We also found a positive relationship between the use of ‘open discovery’ questions and confidence in having conversations about healthy eating post-training (r = 0·21, P = 0·01), but a non-significant trend was observed for having conversations about physical activity (r = 0·15, P = 0·06). Conclusions The ‘Healthy Conversation Skills’ training proved effective at increasing the confidence of staff working at Sure Start Children's Centres to have more productive conversations with parents about healthy eating. Wider implementation of these skills may be a useful public health nutrition capacity building strategy to help community workers support families with young children to eat more healthy foods.

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Accepted/In Press date: 1 August 2012
e-pub ahead of print date: 19 September 2012
Published date: March 2014
Organisations: Faculty of Medicine

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 365898
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/365898
ISSN: 1368-9800
PURE UUID: 93b03dd7-5e37-43c5-bcab-a6744623612f
ORCID for Christina Black: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-3897-3786
ORCID for W. Lawrence: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0003-1264-0438
ORCID for H. Inskip: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0001-8897-1749
ORCID for C. Cooper: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0003-3510-0709
ORCID for M. Barker: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0003-2976-0217
ORCID for J. Baird: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-4039-4361

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Date deposited: 20 Jun 2014 13:34
Last modified: 18 Mar 2024 03:15

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Contributors

Author: Christina Black ORCID iD
Author: W. Lawrence ORCID iD
Author: S. Craddock
Author: G. Ntani
Author: T. Tinati
Author: Megan Jarman
Author: Rufia Begum
Author: H. Inskip ORCID iD
Author: C. Cooper ORCID iD
Author: M. Barker ORCID iD
Author: J. Baird ORCID iD

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