Jessica Lavigne
Fall 2012
Professional Goals and Reflection
Being in the Coordinated Program in Dietetics was one of the best things that have
happened to me. I’ve experienced so much by going through rotations in the Clinical,
Foodservice, School, and Community fields of work. I’m grateful for all the connections I’ve
made with preceptors and facility coordinators. Especially working in the Community with Share
Our Strength’s: Cooking Matters has made me feel closer to the community because I saw my
help change people’s lives. This paper is to showcase the different competencies that I’ve
learned throughout my community rotation.
I believe that I’ve shown proficiency in using current technology for information and
communication. I’ve exhibited these competencies when I did research for a media project in
which I took on the world of Twitter; I also believe that I am a pro at using online resources such
as blackboard for both communication and information purposes. I am comfortable using
Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Publisher. As I’ve already mentioned, my Twitter
research is just one example of my competency in using current technology; on my ePortfolio
page you can find a Nutrition Fair Brochure, Sodium PowerPoint created for Cooking Matters
staff, and many other documents that I’ve created throughout my community rotation.
I completed my community rotation with Share Our Strength’s: Cooking Matters. While
interning for them I taught two classes of low-income family members. The experience of
sharing nutrition information with the participants and seeing them learn along the way felt
amazing. The lessons that I taught them were already planned out by Cooking Matters because
they have a curriculum, so it was my job to implement the lesson and make sure that the
participants left that day confident about a nutrition topic like fats or whole grains. I worked
alongside a peer, my preceptor, and a chef.
Although I was not able to develop many educational materials in my community
rotation because Cooking Matters already has their educational materials laid out, I was still able
to get plenty of that accomplished in my School Nutrition rotation. In community nutrition I was
however able to develop and implement educational material targeted towards college students
and staff at Framingham State University. My class held a nutrition fair in the school and the
topic that I wanted to educate students and staff on was snacking and how it is important. I also
created educational material targeted towards a wide range of audience members; Karen White
allowed my class to appear on her local television cooking show Healthy Bites. During my
segment I worked with another student to demo how to make a black bean vegetable quesadilla,
there were many important talking points and some great nutritional information was given to the
audience.
In order to promote health and nutrition we as nutritionists must reach a large and diverse
audience via many different media styles. The Healthy Family Table assignment that I completed
is an article meant to reach anyone in the Metro West region. Also, the Westborough TV
addresses citizens of Westborough through television, that is a community who will be able to
watch my quesadilla demo but the demo is also accessible by anyone on the internet. I believe
that with the different modes of media I’ve used for projects that I’ve successfully demonstrated
competence.
When working with Cooking Matters participants it was very important to convey
nutrition information to them, but I had to do it in a way that they would understand. I’ve learned
so much in all the classes that I’ve taken at Framingham State University, but when trying to
convey scientific information to the public some information could get lost in translation. I often
would practice the day before giving a nutrition education to the participants at Cooking Matters
and I would pretend that I was speaking to my family because if I was trying to explain
something to my family I’d have to make sure that they first learned the basics so that I could
build off of that. I enjoyed doing this and I think that it positively affected all of the Cooking
Matters participants.
Much of the educational material that I’ve created in my community rotation has
included some type of evaluation of what the participant learned after a lesson. This can consist
of informal questions that I’ve asked them, a formal quiz or test, or a demonstration that the
participants learned something. After participants at the nutrition fair listened to my lesson on
snacks and completed a critical thinking task, they were asked to fill out an evaluation which
tested their knowledge on snacks. The evaluation had a matching section and a true or false
section which pertained to the information I gave them during my lesson. At Cooking Matters,
participants show that their knowledge, behavior, and attitudes have changed by participating in
our discussions and cooking lessons, and by telling us if they’ve changed any of their behaviors
since learning something in class.
Cooking Matters deals with low-income families who need assistance and who have kids
that may receive or are eligible for free/reduced school meals. Families, mothers, teen mothers,
and children are serviced by Share Our Strength and I was able to assist in serving two different
groups of adults. On top of working with the Cooking Matters classes, I also visited a food
pantry several times. Cooking Matters wants to be able to increase the audience that they can
reach by providing the tools necessary for someone to give an educational lesson in a food
pantry. My purpose of going to the Quincy food pantry was to give educational lessons and to
figure out what the pantry customers really want to learn about.
The reason why nutrition is so important in the community is because many diseases can
be screened for a possibly prevented by nutrition. Diseases like obesity, high blood pressure, or
diabetes are susceptible to nutrition intervention. In Cooking Matters classes we always screen a
class for any diseases that we can help them with along the course of our class. If a participant
has high blood pressure then we will be more inclined to use little to no salt in our recipes, and
we will make sure that we discuss sodium as part of one of our lessons.
Nutrition care is important to direct towards every age group. The nutrition fair was
directed mainly towards college students, and the Cooking Matters classes that I taught was
geared more towards adults. Other than children under the age of 18 (which I covered in my
school nutrition rotation) I believe that I exhibited competency in providing nutrition care to a
wide age range.
I think that I showed competency in conducting nutrition promotion and disease
prevention in about every Cooking Matters class that I taught in my rotation. Each class I talked
about a topic such as the different types of fats or whole grains versus refined grains. By giving
lessons about nutrition topics like these I believe that I am changing the attitude or behavior of at
least one participant; I think that after a lesson on fats at least one participant checked the
nutrition facts label to see if there was saturated or trans fats in a product they wanted to buy.
This kind of behavior change is something that will help to prevent diseases such as obesity,
Coronary Heart Disease, or Hyperlipidemia. Just by making one small change in their attitude,
behavior, or knowledge, I have also promoted nutrition knowledge to a Cooking Matters
participant.
I exhibit competency in participating in, developing, and evaluating a community based
food and nutrition program in light of the nutrition fair. The concept was developed as a class
and then as small groups we all developed our nutrition program which we were to implement
the day of the nutrition fair. Evaluation of the lesson was done by having each participant fill out
an evaluation form consisting of questions that pertained to the lesson. Clearly if the majority of
participants got the answers on the evaluation correct then the lesson was successfully carried
out. This was true in my case and it was nice to know that participants left my information table
having learned something new.
Essentially for each Cooking Matters class that I taught, I was in charge of it. There was
always a member of the Cooking Matters staff there who would help me if I needed it, but
majority of the time I was able to lead my own discussion and nutrition lesson with the
participants. I am completely comfortable now and fully confident in myself to lead a nutrition
education to any group of people.
The Quincy Food Pantry works hard to reach a number of people who need assistance. I
was able to consult with them as they made sure they fed anyone who needed it and never turned
down someone if they were hungry. Anyone who earns below a certain threshold can be a
customer at the food pantry. I worked with the customers there to share nutrition information
with them hoping that they would take something away from our short encounter before they
received their food order and left.
To prepare myself for the professional world that I am about to enter as I graduate this
May of 2013, I created an ePortfolio to broadcast my work while in my community nutrition
rotation. This letter also identifies all of the competencies that I’ve exhibited and the ways I went
about completing them. Community nutrition is definitely a field that I’d be interested in
working in.