2025 National EFNEP Coordinators' Conference

Enhancing Nutrition Education with Technology: Leveraging Spend Smart. Eat Smart. for Lesson Engagement:
Are you looking for innovative ways to enhance your nutrition curriculum with the addition of technology to engage participants? Spend Smart. Eat Smart. is a free resource through Iowa State University that has been proven to make nutrition education in Iowa fun and modern with tools that are right at home in a high-tech world. For over 10 years, Spend Smart. Eat Smart. has been a widely used tool throughout the country and beyond. Spend Smart. Eat Smart. holds a reputation as an easy-to-use website and app that prides itself on being a credible source of nutrition information. Recent updates have expanded content to include information geared towards youth, as well as including physical activity videos to fit the needs of a diverse audience. Join us as we share how Spend Smart. Eat Smart. is used in Iowa as a lesson enhancement to promote participant engagement with relevant nutrition information and to stay connected to participants after graduation. We will share how Spend Smart. Eat Smart. can be a useful tool when teaching both in-person and virtually by sharing mini activities and lessons that can be added to your nutrition curriculum. This session will be an interactive look into how you can leverage Spend Smart. Eat Smart. in your program to train nutrition educators and better serve the participants in your communities.

​Enhancing Peer Educator Engagement and Staff Retention within the Indiana EFNEP Team:
The Indiana EFNEP team will present promising practices aimed at inspiring, recognizing, and retaining peer educators. We will explore how we leverage our existing staff to recruit and retain new team members effectively. Recognizing the significant challenges and investments involved in staff recruitment and onboarding, we have implemented several internal mechanisms to ensure our team members feel appreciated and valued, fostering long-term retention.

In this session, we will share strategies that incentivize current staff to participate actively in the recruitment process. Who better to advocate for a position than someone already thriving in it? We will also highlight the leadership opportunities we have developed for staff during the onboarding of new hires, alongside ongoing professional development training and mentoring activities.

Additionally, we have collaborated with our human resources department to establish advancement and promotion pathways based on years of service and experience. Our commitment to continuous education for peer educators includes opportunities to participate in a community health worker training and support for free tuition through Purdue Global for higher education.

Our findings demonstrate that investing in our current staff not only aids in attracting new personnel but also enhances the retention of our existing team members. We invite you to join us in discussing these effective practices and their impact on building a resilient and engaged workforce.
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