Strategies

Provide financial assistance to working parents, or parents attending school, to pay for child care

Provide at-risk expectant parents and families with young children with information, support, and training regarding child health, development, and care from prenatal stages through early childhood via trained home visitors

Expand refundable earned income tax credits for working individuals and families with low to moderate incomes

Provide patients with prescriptions for exercise plans, often accompanied by progress checks at office visits, counseling, activity logs, and exercise testing

Adopt policies that allow custodial parents who receive Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) to collect all child support paid by the non-custodial parent; no portion is retained by the state

Provide employment-based services for non-custodial fathers who pay child support and experience a job loss or a decrease in income

Teach parenting skills in a group setting using a standardized curriculum, often based on behavioral or cognitive-behavioral approaches and focused on parents of at-risk children

Provide messages that support physical activity to large and broad audiences using television, social media, radio, billboards, newspapers, and other print media

Deliver educational, behavioral, environmental, and other obesity prevention efforts (e.g., education classes, enhanced physical education, healthy food promotion, family outreach, etc.) in schools

Help men improve their parenting skills and fathering knowledge via a voluntary, comprehensive fatherhood program