Maike van de Pas works as a quality specialist in the Pedagogy and Quality department of the Service Bureau for Childcare in Tilburg. Her task is to contribute to preparing, developing, implementing and evaluating the pedagogical quality policy of the childcare locations of Kinderstad, Kindercrèche and Sterre Kinderopvang in Tilburg. Much of this concerns healthy childcare. Van de Pas coordinates training sessions, provides advice and maintains contact with parties such as JOGG Tilburg. Esther Peters is a project officer at the municipality of Tilburg’s Sports Company and the operational coordinator of the JOGG approach in Tilburg. Peters mainly looks for connections within the city. “For me, ‘what you learn young, you carry into old age’ is a meaningful proverb. That is also how I came into contact with Maike. Because she is responsible for the vast majority of Tilburg’s childcare locations, she is the ideal sounding board for me to explore what we can achieve in childcare when it comes to a healthier lifestyle.”

Tilburg JOGG municipality

Tilburg has been a JOGG municipality since 2013 and works with the integrated JOGG approach. Peters: “Several years ago, together with the GGD, we organised a meeting with childcare organisations to find out what was going on there regarding a healthy lifestyle. That is how contact with the Service Bureau came about. It was also helpful that the Healthy Childcare website kept improving, so we were increasingly able to give the subject more substance. This is how the idea arose for the Service Bureau for Childcare and JOGG to work together.”

This resulted in a dedicated training programme for childcare coaches, based on the Een Gezonde Start training course offered by Healthy Childcare. The training programme consists of four half-day sessions. Peters: “The Healthy Childcare approach was developed by the Netherlands Nutrition Centre and the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM). In cooperation with them and the GGD Hart voor Brabant, we turned it into an in-company training course specifically for Tilburg.” Van de Pas adds: “The aim of the training is ‘train the trainer’. This means that those who have completed the training subsequently train their own team. That is why the training addresses questions such as ‘what do you do if people are not interested?’, ‘what is your own role?’ and ‘what works and what does not?’.”

In terms of content, there is a great deal of attention for nutrition and physical activity. Van de Pas, who also completed the training herself: “You learn to guide the children in all kinds of ways while keeping them active.” She emphasises another important aspect: the interaction skills of pedagogical professionals. “This concerns how we approach children. That conduct is also discussed extensively during the training.”

Challenges

Van de Pas sees one of the biggest challenges as getting directors and managers of childcare organisations involved in focusing on a healthy lifestyle in childcare, and arranging time and space for the pedagogical professionals to do so. “You have to make it clear to them that this goes much further than simply replacing a biscuit with a piece of cucumber. At the same time, you really need a director, because if it becomes part of your location’s vision, it is easier to get your team on board.” Peters explains how Van de Pas and her colleague devised a plan to enthuse the directors: “She organised an inspiration meeting for directors to find out whether there was sufficient support. That support was necessary, because an in-company training course requires considerable effort and expense. It was wonderful to see that the inspiration meeting led the directors to embrace the plan.”

Van de Pas: “We informed them by focusing on the content. We showed why we believe it is important for children to be healthy, what being healthy brings children, what health does for children’s development and what it does for their living environment. After providing them with the theory, we got them to work in groups, where they had to write an action plan and indicate where they saw opportunities. In this way, they already had a plan ready for what they were going to do and put into practice. We then approached them with the question of whether they wanted to train a pedagogical professional to become a healthy-lifestyle coach.”

Added value

Van de Pas explains the added value of working with Peters as the operational coordinator of the JOGG approach: “She can reach all of Tilburg.” Peters gives some good examples of this: “For instance, in June 2021, together with the Service Bureau for Childcare and Tilburg’s child health clinics, we developed an ‘Eat vegetables’ campaign. As part of this, the child health clinic implemented the ‘Vegetable snacks in ten steps’ intervention. With this campaign, we mainly wanted to draw attention to taste development among children aged 0 to 4. Because we have good contacts with certain supermarkets in Tilburg through JOGG, we also involved them. So too the Groenrijk garden centre, which made vegetable garden packages available to childcare locations at a reduced rate. The library also contributed to the campaign with special books.” Van de Pas: “The strength of the campaign was that parents were made aware of the benefits of eating vegetables and fruit in various places: at the childcare centre, but also, for example, in the supermarket and the library. This allowed us to benefit from the power of repetition.” Peters: “We are now also looking at how we can keep the subject on the agenda.”

Van de Pas says that the preparation was a major help in making the campaign successful: “We had ready-to-use activities prepared for the day-care centres, with, for example, separate colours for the four weeks. This made it easy for the pedagogical professionals to apply them in practice.”

There is also a great deal of attention for physical activity. Van de Pas: “This concerns, for example, children’s autonomy and making sure they do not remain seated at the table for too long. So, making sure they set the table themselves, for example, so that they walk back and forth. And letting them get their own coats to go outside.”

Van de Pas explains the purpose of deploying childcare coaches in all of this: “Ultimately, it is about making a healthy lifestyle part of the DNA and pedagogical practice of childcare. And ensuring that childcare professionals are aware that physical activity and healthy nutrition are in the children’s best interests.”

Tips from Tilburg

At the end, Van de Pas offers a number of tips for successfully implementing a healthy lifestyle approach in childcare: “First of all, work together with other parties, as we do in Tilburg with JOGG. And within childcare: involve all parties, including directors, pedagogical coaches and pedagogical professionals. It also works well if you show enthusiasm for the subject yourself.” Peters adds: “As a JOGG coordinator, I am pleased that Van de Pas is in contact with so many childcare locations, which means I can quickly reach a large group with my approach. It is also great that Van de Pas looks beyond the childcare locations within her own organisation. As a result, all childcare organisations in the municipality of Tilburg can join the campaigns and training, and the approach really is available to all young children in Tilburg (and the surrounding area).”

Opening photo: The launch on 1 June 2021 of the campaign ‘Vegetables, sink your teeth into them!’ at Kindercrèche Dirigent, with the collaborating partners: AH, Aldi, Jumbo, Plus, child health clinic, JOGG and the Service Bureau for Childcare.