Safe Routes for Kids: CA Center



Safe Routes for Kids

Initial Results of Safe Routes for Kids Trainings

The California Center for Physical Activity is conducting an evaluation of its Safe Routes for Kids trainings in partnership with Dr. Dianne S. Ward of RBL Communications and the School of Public Health at the University of North Carolina.

Pre- and post-training surveys were developed to assess participants' perceived readiness to undertake activities that would promote safe routes to school. Two trainers experienced in conducting safe routes to school programs – Wendi Kallins and David Parisi—were contracted to lead the workshop. Formative data obtained from an on-line survey of public health professionals, physical activity advocates and school district personnel, as well as feedback collected during a meeting with school administrators, were used to inform workshop planning. Dr. Ward designed the instruments and analyzed survey results.

Initial results, based on 39 people who participated in the Elk Grove Unified School District Safe Routes to School workshop in June of 2005, indicate that participants were very positive about the training: 92% reported that the workshop was "good" or "excellent." By the end of the workshop, respondents also rated highly their competency (score based on a scale of 1 to 5 where 1 = no competency and 5 = high competency) in implementing safe routes to school strategies with mean scores ranging from 3.0 for helping apply for funding to support safe routes to school to 4.9 for leading a walk audit to identify problems.

However, respondents were not as confident of success after considering the challenges ahead (52% reported that they were "reasonably confident" or "certain" that they could overcome these challenges). Workshop participants reported they would most likely face the following challenges when embarking on SR2S strategies: lack of money or staff (41%), liability issues (30%), and "other" challenges (33%) (e.g., recruiting volunteers and building community support).

When individual pre-and post-training responses were compared, it was observed that exposure to information on safe routes to school may both engage participants and alert them to the complexities of implementing such strategies. Dr. Ward suggested that making more time available in the workshop for discussions about strategies, problems, and solutions may help participants leave the training with more confidence in their ability to implement a program.

The Center will work with Dr. Ward to conduct additional six-month follow-up data to evaluate how well this training prepares participants for implementing safe routes to school strategies and whether it results in more children walking or bicycling to school.