Egyptian Health Department (EHD), as a member of the Illinois CATCH onto Health! Consortium is extremely pleased to announce the beginning of an exciting grant-funded children's health program called C.A.T.C.H . (Coordinated Approach To Child Health).

CATCH is an evidence-based coordinated school health program designed to promote physical activity, healthy food choices, and prevent tobacco use in elementary school aged children. CATCH uses several aspects of the school environment and involves classroom teachers, school food service staff, physical education (PE) teachers, students' families, and the broader school community in a range of health promoting activities for all children in grades K-5. There are four core components of CATCH :

•  Eat Smart school nutrition
•  Go for Health Classroom Curriculum
•  CATCH Physical Education
•  Family Home Team activities

The coordination of health messages and activities between these four component areas is essential to positively impact children's knowledge, skills, and behavior. By establishing healthy behaviors in childhood, CATCH proves nutrition learning and physical activity can be FUN! For nearly 20 years, CATCH has guided schools, families, and children in healthy living. CATCH has developed an evidence base that demonstrates the effectiveness of CATCH at improving physical activity and nutrition (decreasing fat consumption) as well as maintaining those changes across time. Recently, a CATCH program in El Paso, Texas reported significant effects of CATCH on preventing the onset of overweight and obesity among school aged children.

Phyllis Wood, EHD CATCH Director, states,

“EHD is very excited to bring the CATCH program to our service region of Hamilton, White, Saline, Gallatin, Pope and Hardin County schools! CATCH , when used as part of a school's wellness policy, has demonstrated positive outcomes regarding the improvement of students' academic performance as well as providing them with healthy living skills that will last a lifetime. It just makes sense – healthy children make better learners!

In our area, we currently have three schools, one each in Gallatin, Saline and White County, joining more than 7000 CATCH schools nationwide implementing CATCH for the 2008-2009 school year! We have a variety of projects planned for each school, beginning with hosting a CATCH training day for school staff, distributing newsletters for families, sponsoring a family fun event, and purchasing additional physical education equipment.

Each school has a “school champion” someone who serves as an enthusiastic supporter of the CATCH program and as a liaison between the school and EHD. At Carmi's Jefferson Attendance Center the school champion is Mrs. Cindy Colman , at Eldorado Elementary it's Mrs. Lori Woolcott , and at Gallatin County, it's Mrs. Stacia McGuire . I'm looking forward to working with each school's staff as they eagerly introduce the CATCH program into their school. We are expecting a terrific year and some equally terrific results from both staff and students!

It is our goal to recruit all our area schools into the CATCH program, so if anyone wants to learn more about this exciting program, I encourage them to contact EHD, visit the CATCH website at www.catchinfo.org or the CATCH Texas website www.catchtexas.org .”

The three-year Delta States Rural Development Network Grant Program is funded by the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration office of Rural Health Policy and is administered in southern Illinois by Southern Illinois University-Carbondale's Center for Rural Health and Social Service Development (SIUC-CRHSSD).

The Illinois CATCH onto Health! Consortium includes SIUC-CRHSSD ( http://www.siu.edu/~crhssd/ ) as well as three Illinois Delta Region partnership organizations – Egyptian Health Department ( www.egyptian.org ), Southern Illinois Healthcare ( www.sih.net ), and Southern Seven Health Department ( www.southern7.org ).

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