Development Of A Skills-based Curriculum To Promote Health Behaviors Through Physical Activity

PURPOSE: The COVID-19 pandemic revealed a gap in parent resources to support child physical activity (PA) in the home environment. The purpose of this project was to develop a skills-based curriculum that empowers families to practice multiple effective health behaviors, through the common thread of PA. METHODS: A 12-step curriculum integration process (Malik & Malik, 2011) was followed. The steps included: 1) assembling a curriculum development team; 2) determining the scope of the project; 3) considering the level of PA integration into the curriculum to create a common thread; 4) considering vertical and horizontal integration of PA into the curriculum; 5) creating module-specific working groups; 6) creating learning outcomes; 7) documenting content: topics covered, skills learned, attitudes developed; 8) determining themes; 9) determining sequencing; 10) selecting assessment tools; 11) communicating with partners on content and implementation; 12) re-evaluating and revising the curriculum based on partner feedback. RESULTS: A multidisciplinary team was formed (1) and decided to create a 12-module family-based curriculum. PA was integrated (2) at the level of nesting (i.e., integration of PA into another health topic discussion) (3). Horizontal and vertical integration were achieved by including PA across topics and modules (4). Module-specific working groups were created based on individuals’ expertise (5), with each responsible for developing learning outcomes (6). Content focused on improving family knowledge, skills, and attitudes of health topics (e.g., sleep, nutrition) (7) through the theme of families “moving together, being together, and thinking together” (8). Modules followed a 12-month sequence aligned with Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (9) and self-assessment methods included completion of 20-day family activity challenges (10). The final curriculum was presented to key partners for review (11) with a commitment to continued revision (12). CONCLUSIONS: A systematic process was used to develop a 12-module skills-based curriculum that integrated PA into each module to provide a common mechanism to support family engagement in health behaviors. Our next steps include assessing the effectiveness of the curriculum to enhance families’ health knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors. This work was supported by the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services and Michigan Public Health Institute through the Coronavirus Task Force Rapid Relief Initiative (Q-80041)