About HENRYHENRY aims to tackle childhood obesity by helping community and health practitioners enhance their knowledge, skills and confidence when working in the key lifestyle areas:
- parenting and relationship skills
- healthy eating
- eating patterns
- physical activity
- emotional well-being
HENRY aims to influence not only how practitioners work with families but also the settings in which they work, and their own and their family’s lifestyles.Our prime focus is to support those who work with parents and carers of babies, toddlers and preschool children. The Programme is underpinned by the Family Partnership Model, which emphasises working in partnership rather than taking a traditional expert approach. We augment this by training practitioners to offer solution-focused support that builds on parents’ strengths rather than focusing on their difficulties.
HENRY was developed by Professor Mary Rudolf, consultant paediatrician and Candida Hunt, parenting educator and training consultant. Its foundations are solidly based on evidence relating to obesity, parenting and lifestyle, and research into professionals’ needs as identified by practitioners and parents of young obese children.
HENRY has been piloted and evaluated through grants from the Department of Health, Department for Children, Schools and Families and the Child Growth Foundation.
Levels of obesity in children are rising so fast that the problem has been described as a time bomb. The evidence is alarming. By the time children start school 10% are already obese, and babies who are overweight are 5 times more likely to develop obesity at some point in their lives. It is simply too late to focus our efforts on helping children after they have started school.
Our own research with health and community practitioners has highlighted a pressing need for training to develop the skills to tackle this complex issue sensitively and effectively.
There is much to do, and much can be done. HENRY offers an approach that makes a difference, through working with parents to enhance their ability to provide an optimally healthy environment for their babies and young children.
From The Times
One in 10 children is obese when starting primary schoolBy David Rose
Supporting the national agenda
Childhood obesity is high on the national agenda. Its importance is highlighted in key government documents such as Every Child Matters, the Child Health Promotion Programme and Healthy Weight, Healthy Lives.HENRY, which has been funded by the Department of Health and the Department for Children, Schools and Families, offers a way to address the problem. Its emphasis on partnership working, emotionally literate parenting and obesity places it at the heart of the national agenda. The demand we are experiencing for training is an indicator of how it is perceived to be of help in meeting government targets to reduce obesity at school entry.
HENRY aims to tackle all levels in the pyramid of risk. Its core is our work with community and health practitioners and Sure Start Children’s Centre teams. It is government policy to extend Children’s Centres nationally and to make support and facilities available to every young family across the country. The DH and DCSF have asked us to focus in the first instance on Children’s Centres located in the most disadvantaged areas as obesity is so difficult to counter when it is linked to poverty.
At the top of the pyramid are babies who are known to be at particular risk of obesity. *EMPOWER has been funded by the Department of Health to see if it is possible for highly trained practitioners to reduce this risk by working intensively with parents using the HENRY approach in the first two years of life.
At the base of the pyramid is the whole population because ALL children are potentially at risk in our obesogenic environment. We are working towards making HENRY and Glugs resources available to young families directly.
HENRY is cited in Child Health Promotion Programme for pregnancy and the first five years of life (DH 2008 update) - The Healthy Weight, Healthy Lives Guidance for Local Areas (DH and DCSF) - Tackling Health Inequalities: progress and next steps (DH)
* EMPOWER is under trial, and is a home visiting programme for babies at high risk of obesity.
