Introduction
For 3-7 age group, health literacy is essential to prevent infection-based diseases. Children of this age tend to engage in learning activities that involve touching lots of items. Since many of the children in these years like to share their toys, clothes, and other objects, health literacy information such as educative lecture on basic hygiene could be helpful for this age group to address possible infection-related indigestion, problems related to intestinal worms and other illnesses (Ormshaw, Paakkari, & Kannas, 2013). In addition, following the principles of hygiene can be considered a long-term benefit as adherence to a certain practice is formed easier at earlier ages. Children of 9-12 years may benefit from health literacy in the sphere of dental hygiene. Similarly to 3-7 age group, these children are rather young and can be taught to adhere to mouth cavity hygiene practices easier. Health literacy program for 14 to 18 years old children may include information on healthy eating practices. It will help them to avoid weight problems and decrease the possibility of developing eating disorders.
Main Body
The first step towards implementing health literacy program for children of each age group would be developing learning materials and techniques. Children belonging to 3-7 age group are likely to engage in active learning. Therefore, there is a need to develop a game-based learning intervention that would help children learn the basic hygiene practices such as hand washing through playing a game. For 9-12 age group, one may develop infographic information about proper techniques of dental care. Game-based learning could also be possible to implement. For older children aged 14-18 more sophisticated yet compelling information-packed presentation can be developed. It is important to produce examples of non-adherence to healthy eating and ensure that information material is practical and easy to memorize.
At the beginning of the assessment phase, a community health nurse has to play a managerial role. There is a need to ensure that assessment plan is developed coherently and meets the identified goals. Data integrity and safety also needs to be examined at the beginning of the assessment intervention due to a high risk of jeopardizing it (Haun, Valerio, McCormack, Sørensen, & Paasche-Orlow, 2014). Data handling procedures must be examined as per the presence of bias. Necessary strategies for avoiding the bias need to be developed.
At the end of the program, there will be a need to adequately present the results to the stakeholders. Parents, teachers, and community needs to see both positive and negative (if any) results of the intervention, as it is critical for exercising the integrity policy and collaboration on correctional initiatives. Community health nurse needs to motivate stakeholders to work together as a team to ensure their children stay healthy and literate enough to be self-sufficient to a reasonable degree. This may be advantageous for later interventions, should they be required.
As per the resources to implement the program, minimal funds are needed to conduct the learning sessions proposed. Each intervention planned requires mostly human resources and creativity of a certain focus group that will be interested in assisting the community health nurse in the implementation phase. Assessment phase also will unlikely require anything beyond personal competence in working with quantitative and qualitative data and presentation skills. Therefore, the project is rather easy to implement and requires minimal effort.
References
Haun, J. N., Valerio, M. A., McCormack, L. A., Sørensen, K., & Paasche-Orlow, M. K. (2014). Health literacy measurement: An inventory and descriptive summary of 51 instruments. Journal of Health Communication, 19(suppl 2), 302-333.
Ormshaw, M. J., Paakkari, L. T., & Kannas, L. K. (2013). Measuring child and adolescent health literacy: A systematic review of literature. Health Education, 113(5), 433-455.