Whole Child Wellness

In 2008, The Horizon Foundation for New Jersey and the New Jersey YMCA State Alliance created Healthy U – a collaborative initiative to combat the obesity epidemic among New Jersey children. The goal of the program is to prevent childhood obesity through nutrition education, increased physical activity, and family involvement. Healthy U utilizes the CATCH curriculum to promote healthy behavior changes at home and in school that can last a lifetime. In 2012, Healthy U began to expand beyond after school programs and into preschools and schools. Healthy U is the largest implementer of the CATCH curriculum in the country.

As one of the first implementors of the CATCH My Breath program, Wareham Middle School has championed the curriculum and its resources to 7th grade students since the beginning of the 2017-2018 school year. Wareham Middle School’s health teacher, Harriette Sullivan, covers the CATCH My Breath program in her classroom 4 times during each school year in order to teach her 7th graders about the dangers of e-cigarettes and provide them with the tools needed to resist falling victim to peer pressure and manipulative advertisements. Many of Sullivan’s students have shared with her the success they have experienced with rejecting e-cigarettes thanks to the CATCH My Breath program, which led to a CNN feature on her classroom in August 2018. Due to her successful application of the program, Sullivan was appointed as the first official CATCH My Breath Ambassador last fall.

The Brownsville ISD CATCH project took place from February 2017 to January 2018 and aimed to strengthen the district’s coordinated school health programming to better support and promote healthy eating and physical activity for approximately 21,000 K-5th grade students in 37 elementary schools. Brownsville ISD first implemented CATCH district-wide in 2001 and the program has since become an integral part of the district’s efforts to improve students’ health-related behaviors.

Reaching approximately 9,897 middle schoolers and 7,286 high schoolers, the CATCH My Breath program has expanded quickly throughout the state of North Carolina thanks to several key advocates at both the local and state levels. While implementation initially began in 2017, most of the state-wide growth occurred during the 2018-2019 school year after multiple trainings, presentations, and webinars. CATCH My Breath has collaborated and partnered with many North Carolina organizations, such as Youth Empowered Solutions and the North Carolina Division of Public Health, Tobacco Prevention and Control Branch, to support implementation efforts by providing educators with the information to confront the youth vaping epidemic through e-cigarette and JUUL prevention techniques. To meet this state-wide demand for preventative programming, CATCH My Breath conducted personalized trainings for Winston-Salem Schools, Scotland County Schools, and Gaston County School District. The CATCH My Breath team also presented to five regional health department meetings, the North Carolina Association for Health Physical Education Recreation and Dance Conference, and the North Carolina State Department of Health. This widespread coverage and support of the CATCH My Breath program ultimately led to multiple news articles and video reports featuring the curriculum on the local Fox News affiliate station.

Thanks to several key advocates at both the state and local levels, implementation of the CATCH My Breath program reached 56 school districts across New York State during the 2018-2019 school year. Collaboration between the CATCH team and many partners throughout NYS contributed to the rapid growth. During the year, teachers, public health advocates, and parents participated in trainings, presentations, conferences, and webinars provided by CATCH. Development continues with the New York City Department of Education, Reality Check, local health departments and the CATCH team for further expansion of the program throughout NYS.
In order to meet the need for e-cigarette prevention across the state, the CATCH team conducted personalized presentations for several local health departments, school districts and community-based organizations. Ongoing support from the Erie County Health Department, Southern Tier Tobacco Awareness Coalition, substance abuse prevention organizations, New York State Association for Health, Physical Education Recreation and Dance (NY AHPERD) and CATCH My Breath Ambassadors, Crissy Groenewegen and Maryann Moriarty contribute to the continued growth across the state.