Heartland Family Services Offers Healthy Alternatives for Little Ones (HALO)

Healthy Alternatives for Little Ones (HALO), helps children ages three to six understand the complexities of “health” and “healthy choices” by putting these abstract concepts in concrete terms they can understand. In HALO, health is defined as growing “bigger, stronger, and better able to think.”

Heartland Family Service developed this unique and interactive twelve-unit curriculum ten years ago, and currently supports child care professionals in homes, centers, preschools, and kindergartens by providing the curriculum, training and on-going assistance for free. Once trained, the child care professionals then implement HALO as a part of their individual child care program indefinitely.

The HALO curriculum is designed to teach all children between the ages of 3 and 6, but often provides low income children with their only opportunity (in home-based day care, Title XX day care centers, and Head Start programs) to learn these concepts that may not come “naturally” to parents or child care providers. The curriculum helps young children feel special, capable, and able to communicate feelings, all while learning about the important ways their bodies work and how their actions affect the health of their important internal organs.

Through developmentally appropriate activities, children are given repeated opportunities to practice skills that help them understand how to make healthy choices and to say “no” to things that are harmful. The twelve units range from understanding emotions to dealing with stress, from the effects of drugs on your internal organs to the importance of eating healthy and exercising.

Since its inception HALO has impacted over 12,000 children across the Omaha Metro and surrounding areas. The curriculum is available to day care centers, preschools, after-school programs and child care centers by contacting Heartland Family Service at 553-3000.