Technical Assistance for Child and Adult Care Food Program in Family Child Care Home

May 1, 2026 updated by: University of Oklahoma

Compliance and Technical Assistance for Child and Adult Care Food Program in Family Child Care Homes

This study evaluates the effect of a nutrition technical assistance training program for family child care home providers on the food they serve young children in their care and the food environment in their home. Half the providers will be assigned to the nutrition program and the other half will receive a comparison on environmental health.

Study Overview

Status

Completed

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Detailed Description

Early care and education (ECE) providers play a vital role in ensuring that young children have access to nutritious foods. Over 25% of children in ECE (1.2 million children) attend Family Child Care Homes (FCCH). Improvements in the Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP) may introduce new barriers for FCCH, which have limited meal preparation capacity. Limited research has examined foods served by FCCH providers, and no group randomized trials have been conducted using a Community-Based Participatory approach in FCCH and including an evaluation of intervention costs.

Goals: 1. Determine compliance of menus and meals provided in FCCH with CACFP guidelines. 2. Determine the effectiveness of a community-based Nutrition Technical Assistance intervention to enhance meeting CACFP best-practices.

Methods: Conduct a cross-sectional assessment of a random sample of FCCH providers' (n=52) menus and meals served. Foods will be evaluated against the CACFP requirements and best-practices. After the cross-sectional examination, providers will be randomly assigned to a Nutrition Technical Assistance (n=26) or attention comparison intervention (n=26). The intervention is based on theoretical foundations and formative interviews, and will consist of two 60-90-minute visits to the FCCH and one group class lasting approximately 3 hours.

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Actual)

72

Phase

  • Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Locations

  • United States
    • Oklahoma
      • Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, United States, 73117
        • University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

18 years to 70 years (Adult, Older Adult)

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • Family child care home providers within 60 minutes of Oklahoma City who participate in the Child and Adults Care Food Program

Exclusion Criteria:

  • none

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

  • Primary Purpose: Prevention
  • Allocation: Randomized
  • Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
  • Masking: None (Open Label)

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Behavioral: Nutrition assistance
three encounters with Intervention team over three months: two home-based visits for 90 minutes each scheduled at the convenience of the provider and a 3- hour group class session with other providers.
Behavioral: Nutrition assistance
Participating family child care home providers in and around the Oklahoma City (OKC) area will be randomized to either the Nutrition, or an environmental health comparison group. Briefly, the Nutrition Technical Assistance Intervention and comparison group will consist of three encounters with the intervention team: two home-based, 90-minute visits scheduled at the convenience of the family child care home provider and a 3-hour group class session that will be conducted on a weekend. Total contact time with intervention staff will be 6 hours. All participants will receive a toolkit. Providers will complete either intervention over a period of three months.
Experimental: Behavioral: Children's environmental health
three encounters with Intervention team over three months: two home-based visits for 90 minutes each scheduled at the convenience of the provider and a 3- hour group class session with other providers.
Behavioral: Children's environmental health/comparison
Participating family child care home providers in and around the OKC area will be randomized to either the Nutrition, or an environmental health intervention that will receive an Integrated Pest Management and Green Cleaning intervention with the same format and visit frequency. Briefly, the Intervention will consist of three encounters with the intervention team: two home-based, 90-minute visits scheduled at the convenience of the family child care home provider and a 3-hour group class session that will be conducted on a weekend. Total contact time with intervention staff will be 6 hours. All participants will receive a toolkit. Providers will complete either intervention over a period of three months.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Change in Self-reported Nutrition Practices
Time Frame: baseline, post 3-months, post 12-months
Providers report the nutrition environment using the Nutrition and Physical Activity Self Assessment for Child Care (NAPSACC). Scores averaged across items range 0-4. Higher score indicates more desired/healthier outcome.
baseline, post 3-months, post 12-months

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Provider Nutrition Knowledge
Time Frame: baseline, post 3-months, post 12-months
Self-reported nutrition knowledge using a modified Revised General Nutrition Knowledge Questionnaire. It was reduced in length to 38 items from 88 items. Scores ranged from 0-38 with a higher score indicating greater nutrition knowledge.
baseline, post 3-months, post 12-months
Change in Compliance of Menu With Child and Adult Care Food Program Best Practices
Time Frame: baseline, post 3-months, post 12-months
menus are compared to the best practices of the Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP). The scale measures the number of elements of the menu which are compliance with the CACFP best practices. The CACFP best Practice compliance tool has a range of 0-25. A higher score is associated with a more desirable outcome and thus higher CACFP best practice compliance.
baseline, post 3-months, post 12-months
Change in Children's Dietary Intake of Vegetables at Lunch
Time Frame: baseline, post 3-months, post 12-months
Observation of children's dietary intake on 2 unannounced days using the Dietary Observation in Child Care methods and Food Processor for nutrient analysis. Outcome is cups of vegetables consumed.
baseline, post 3-months, post 12-months

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

University of Oklahoma

Investigators

  • Principal Investigator: Susan B Sisson, PhD, University of Oklahoma

Publications and helpful links

The person responsible for entering information about the study voluntarily provides these publications. These may be about anything related to the study.

General Publications

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start (Actual)

October 1, 2017

Primary Completion (Actual)

March 30, 2019

Study Completion (Actual)

October 30, 2019

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

May 23, 2018

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

June 5, 2018

First Posted (Actual)

June 18, 2018

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Actual)

May 28, 2026

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

May 1, 2026

Last Verified

May 1, 2026

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Additional Relevant MeSH Terms

Other Study ID Numbers

  • 7551

Drug and device information, study documents

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product

No

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product

No

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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