Our collaborative team of professionals from WIC, Maternal & Child Health, the Office of Children with Special Healthcare Needs and our Office of Childcare Licensure just finished and posted 4 dynamite videos to help our AZ Childcare Centers and Homes to adopt our  Empower Pack wellness program.  The videos range from about 7 to 9 minutes, and they break down the Empower criteria into easy to understand vignettes to help operators effectively implement the standards.  All  the videos were filmed at real childcare facilities with real childcare staff and kids.  Teachers and caregivers talk about how they incorporated empower activities into their day and give helpful hints.

There are lots of great things about the videos, but one of the things that I like the best is that each of them include elements where they talk about how easy it is to incorporate the empower criteria for the kids that may have special needs.  The way the team accomplished that part is remarkable.  Anyway, check it out and make sure you promote it with our stakeholders and partners.

Empower was also featured at a roundtable discussion for American Public Health Association national meeting this week.   Jeanette Shea was asked to present on our policy that incorporates childhood obesity and tobacco use prevention—two critical public health issues – into an innovative prevention program, by blending dollars from three funding streams.  The APHA Annual Meeting & Exposition is the oldest and largest gathering of public health professionals in the world, attracting more than 13,000 national and international physicians, administrators, nurses, educators, researchers, epidemiologists, and related health specialists – a great audience to hear about EMPOWER.