About Healthy Early

History

Our work started in 2007 as the Wisconsin Early Childhood Obesity Prevention Initiative (WECOPI). We rebranded as Healthy Early in 2017 to reflect our current priorities and refined target: early care and education settings for children birth to 5 and out-of-school time for children ages 6-12.

Our team comprises over 90 multi-sector partners from state agencies, the private and nonprofit sectors, academia, and several state and regional-level ECE and child advocacy organizations. As a statewide, cross-sector partnership, we work to create equitable opportunities for healthy eating and physical activity for Wisconsin kids and families. We are committed to working with parents, caregivers, and early childhood providers as guided by their lived experiences.

Mission

We are committed to promoting, supporting, and creating equitable eating and physical activity opportunities for every kid and family through policy, systems, and environmental changes.

Priorities

Priorities are revisited every 3 years.

• Engage Families: Create and align resources to support families around nutrition, physical activity, and breastfeeding.
• Strengthen Resources: Update, expand, promote, and support the use of Healthy Early materials.
• Grow the Network: Align our work with emerging opportunities and recruit other organizations to join our cause.
• Explore Out-of-School Time (OST) Needs: Learn about OST settings and ways to engage and support nutrition and physical activity

Our Progress

We have obtained nearly $3 million to date to support the following accomplishments:

• Completed nutrition and physical activity assessment in ECE settings, including researching best practices, conducting focus groups, and developing curriculum and training
• Created multiple toolkits and resources:
  • Active Early (physical activity),
  • Healthy Bites (nutrition),
  • Got Dirt? (gardening),
  • Got Veggies? (garden education),
  • Ten Steps to Breastfeeding Friendly Child Care Centers,
  • The Wisconsin Farm to ECE Resource Collection, and Active Early and Healthy Bites Kits (family engagement)
• Received recognition from the First Lady’s Let’s Move! Child Care initiative for exceptional work promoting young children’s health in Washington, D.C., 2011
• Assisted the development and evaluation of 320 obesity prevention pilot programs in ECE settings across Wisconsin
• Contributed to strengthening standards around nutrition and physical activity in both child care licensing and the YoungStar Quality Rating and Improvement System (QRIS)