Evaluation of The Public Pool of Funds Preventive Efforts for Overweight Children and Young People

From 2012 to 2015, the Danish Government and the parties behind the public pool of funds appropriated funds to enhance the preventive efforts for overweight children and young people. Funding was appropriated to a project at the Danish “Julemærkhjem” (charity homes for overweight children) called “Øget udbytte” (Added value). This project aimed at enhancing collaboration between the homes and parents and between the homes and the municipalities.
The project focused on both strengthening and organizing collaboration with parents and with municipalities. This report describes the results of the project evaluation.
Overall, collaboration with parents has been successful, and staff reported that collaboration with parents has improved. The families and the staff at the homes feel that they have gotten to know one another much better, and they now share knowledge about which challenges the individual child faces. Additionally, the parents have formed parent networks, and this has helped them feel that they are alone.
The municipal collaboration has posed several challenges, however, towards the end of the evaluation process, overall, the collaboration was deemed successful. For example, it is positive for the families to have a municipal contact person, whom they can contact if they have any questions.
The evaluation was financed by the public pool of funds “Preventive efforts for overweight children and young people”, and was commissioned by the Danish Health Authority.