Child Nutrition: Program Support

Nutrition is vital to a healthy lifestyle and an overall sense of wellbeing. Learning to nourish the body with nutritious foods and healthy habits begins in infancy and lasts throughout adulthood. A nutrition program’s goal is to provide nourishing and appealing meals to participants while providing opportunities to learn and foster healthy lifestyles.

Our Child Nutrition Programs (CNP) team provides training and comprehensive program support to local Contracting Entities (CEs) in the operation and administration of Food Nutrition Program under the direction of the Texas Department of Agriculture (TDA) and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). We assist your team of nutrition professionals with regulations compliance, streamlining operations, and culinary training. Program and administrative training and compliance assistance is available at no cost for these programs:

• National School Lunch Program (NSLP)
• School Breakfast Program (SBP)
• Summer Food Service Program (SFSP)
• USDA Foods
• Child & Adult Care Food Program (CACFP)
• Afterschool Programs

We provide workshops and regional training in all phases of program operations in partnership with TDA. We assist CEs in developing competencies that enhance the performance level of staff and the school or community nutrition programs to deliver compliant and nutritious meals. Our training topics include:

• Financial Management for Food Service and Business Managers
• Culinary Skills Training
• Meal Patterns and Nutrition Standards
• Procurement Practices
• USDA Foods Entitlement (Commodities)
• Menu Planning
• Food Production Records and Meal Production Records
• Eligibility Guidance and Application Processing
• MENU Module Nutrition Software Training
• Food Safety and Sanitation
• Farm Fresh Program
• Afterschool Programs
• Record-keeping

In addition, we provide customizable support such as:

• Individual/Personalized/CE-Specific Training
• Administrative Review Preparation Assistance
• Corrective Action Document Assistance
• Professional Networking Facilitation