Implementing and evaluating a school-based childhood obesity prevention intervention with a community-university partnership: Lessons learned from the HEROES Initiative

Community and university partnerships with schools are gaining increasing attention as an important mechanism to enhance students’ health; however, little information exists about the best models available for this kind of collaboration. Grounded in the coordinated school health model, the HEROES (Healthy, Energetic, Ready, Outstanding, Enthusiastic Schools) Initiative promotes wellness in schools in order to mitigate childhood obesity in Indiana, Illinois, and Kentucky. Central to the HEROES Initiative is its community-university partnership underpinning. The Welborn Baptist Foundation (WBF), which developed and funds the program, is a community-based organization devoted to improving health and well-being in the tri-state area it serves. The WBF has provided financial and technical support for 34 HEROES schools over the past six years. Indiana University serves as a university partner, particularly related to evaluation, providing evidence-based guidance for programming, and dissemination of the intervention. The WBF and Indiana University have maintained this successful collaboration with each other and HEROES schools for five years, and have leveraged this three-fold relationship as a means to enhance the HEROES Initiative and student outcomes over time. This presentation will use the HEROES Initiative as a case study by describing a successful model of a community-university-school partnership. Representatives from each entity will address their roles, how they have evolved over time, and the benefits and challenges of this kind of collaboration. Lessons learned from the HEROES Initiative should benefit individuals and organizations considering initiating this kind of partnership in the future or who are reexamining the roles of current program partners.