Amherst Office

Forty Years of Teaching from the Heart

EFNEP educators help families learn that nutrition begins at home by reaching them where they live

Back in the 1960s, the Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program (EFNEP) got its start by knocking on doors—literally. The very first EFNEP Nutrition Educators, recruited from the communities in which they lived, spent their days going door to door, fresh groceries in hand, introducing themselves to low-income homemakers with the words “I’m from UMass, and I can show you how to get more food for your money.” One homemade chicken dinner later, and another family was on the road to healthier eating.

Today’s EFNEP has grown with the times. Advances in dietary guidelines have changed the content of lessons and recipes. Preventing chronic diseases associated with poor food choices has become a vital emphasis. And interactive group sessions have replaced in-home demos. But the critical essence of EFNEP’s nutritional workshops—learning by dialogue—has stayed the same. “Parents learn from each other, leaders learn from participants,” says NEP Program Director Jean Anliker. “Everyone contributes.”

What makes this model so effective is that group leaders still come from the communities they serve. “The educators really understand the participants, and the participants know that,” adds Anliker. “They speak the same language and understand the foods they like to eat, like calabaza or sofrito, and can show them how to cook their favorite foods in healthier ways.”

Part of a national program targeted to low-income families with young children, EFNEP reaches its participants through local agencies such as homeless shelters and job training programs. And while program staff do connect clients to much-needed resources such as WIC and school lunch programs, the primary focus is on teaching families to eat healthy and use their food money wisely. “This program is so much more valuable than food assistance, because we teach participants lifelong skills,” says EFNEP Program Leader Lisa Sullivan-Werner. “When we reach the person who’s responsible for choosing, buying, and preparing food, the whole family benefits.”

Those benefits start early. EFNEP’s summer and after-school youth programs teach children the same skills their parents are learning, through engaging games based on popular TV shows, such as a version of “Fear Factor” that challenges young people to try unfamiliar foods like raw beets, and “Meal or No Meal,” in which kids decide whether the “briefcase” contains enough food groups to constitute a healthy meal.

Perhaps the best testament to EFNEP’s success is the number of participants who become so inspired that they go on to teach others—from a woman in a homeless shelter who organized a daily workout class to a former EFNEP participant who became an EFNEP educator herself and is pursuing her associate’s degree. It’s stories like these that keep EFNEP educators committed, and that commitment in turn keeps their students eager to learn.

“We teach in a whole different way that really respects our participants and makes it relevant and fun,” says Anliker. “I still get goosebumps when I see our educators teach. It really is from the heart.”

UMass Extension’s EFNEP programs are available in Brockton, Lawrence, Fall River, Worcester, and Springfield.