Two images aligned vertically. The first is the Adolescent Citizen Scientists logo. It features an apple, a variety of hands, and the words, "Teens Improving the Food Environment." The second image is a busy street featuring several fast food restaurants in close proximity.The second image shows a "Fruits and Vegetables" sign (written in both English and Spanish) at a food pantry.

Adolescent Citizen Scientists

Local Food Assistance Resource Guides

The ACS program culminated in the co-design, implementation, and dissemination of a Hartford Public High School Food Resource Guide to provide information to HPHS students and their families to help them access food assistance resources in their community.

Based on positive feedback following implementation of the HPHS Food Resource Guide, we created a Connecticut Food Resource Guide with information about resources available in the state that could be disseminated throughout Connecticut.

Information about the Adolescent Citizen Scientists' creation and dissemination process for both guides can be found below.

Button that says: "Click here to access the Hartford Public High School Food Resource Guide" Button that says "Click here to access the Connecticut Food Resource Guide"

Resources

Food Resource Guides

The Food Resource Guides

The Food Resource Guides provide the following information for students and their families:

  • Listings and how to access information about Connecticut food pantries, mobile food trucks and summer meal programs
  • Contact information and procedures to access SNAP and WIC food assistance programs.
  • Versions available in English and Spanish.
  • The Food Resource Guide designed specifically for HPHS students and families also contains information on how to access the HPHS school food pantry (“Grub Pub”) and has a list of food pantries located near the school. This version is also available in Portuguese.

All versions of the Food Resource Guides are available online:

Co-Design

Co-Design Process

What is co-design?

Co-design is a collaborative process that brings together community members, stakeholders, and individuals with lived experience to develop solutions that are meaningful, practical, and responsive to community needs. This approach ensures that those most affected by an issue have a voice in developing solutions. For more information, see the Program Co-design module on the ACS training page.

How we used co-design to develop the Food Resource Guides:

The project began by identifying and understanding the needs of Hartford Public High School (HPHS) students and their families.

  • Focus groups with HPHS students helped the team understand the barriers to healthy eating that they experience in their community.
  • Based on discussions with our Community Advisory Board and school personnel and observations of students in the school setting, food insecurity emerged as a significant concern affecting students and families.
  • The ACS, guided by the program team, then conducted interviews with key stakeholders within the school and community, including teachers, counselors, and other school staff, and local food pantry coordinators and food bank staff members, to better understand the challenges faced by students and families with food insecurity.
  • The ACS considered barriers to accessing food resources, challenges navigating available services, and generated ideas for improving awareness of existing support.
  • The ACS, together with the program team, then co-designed the Hartford Public High School Food Resource Guide. Students helped shape the content, language, design, and accessibility of the guide to ensure it reflected HPHS students’ needs and preferences.
  • Based on feedback from community members we collected throughout the process, we further refined and broadened the scope of the Guide. This led to the creation of the Connecticut Food Resource Guide.

More information about the specific steps taken to co-design the guides:

Food Resource Guides – Communications Plan

Food Resource Guides - Communications Plan

We also used the principles of co-design to develop a detailed plan to communicate and disseminate the Food Resource Guide among HPHS students and their families, as well as the greater Hartford community and families throughout Connecticut.

The communications goals, key messages, dissemination strategies, and materials were informed by school personnel and community partner input, student experiences, and ongoing feedback throughout the project.

By involving students, school personnel, and community partners at each stage of development, we were able to create a communication plan that reflects community priorities and supports the effective dissemination of the Food Resource Guide to students and families. We also discovered outreach opportunities. With the assistance of the school librarian, we created an ACS-led podcast. The Teens Tackling Food Insecurity podcast is available on Hartford Public High School's website.

Resources for creating your own communication plan:

*This template was created by the CDC’s Division of Adolescent and School Health. Additional information and tools for designing and implementing a school-based public health communication plan are available on the CDC website