New Jersey Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program

The New Jersey Expanded Food & Nutrition Education Program (EFNEP) assists limited-resource families and youth in acquiring the knowledge, skills, attitudes, and behavior changes necessary for nutritionally sound diets. This program is also intended to increase food security and dietary and nutritional welfare of participants and their families.
The program goal is positively impact the health of families in Passaic County and reduce health costs by helping families:

• Improve Their Dietary Quality: Help them eat tasty foods that will improve their health.;
• Improve Their Physical Activity: Get them up and moving;
• Improve Their Food Safety Practices: Safely handle, prepare, and store their foods; and
• Improve Their Resource Management and Shopping Practices: Keep their food costs within their budgets and available resources.
• Increase Their Access to Food Resources and Assistance Programs.

EFNEP provides education through paraprofessionals (Community Assistants) who are, by law, to the maximum extent practical, hired from the indigenous target population. Adult programs are designed as classes that meet all of the following minimum criteria; they are:

• Comprised of 4–20 people;
• Meet at least 8-10 times;
• Last at least one hour per session; and
• Are held over a period of at least 5 weeks and for no longer than a year

To receive a graduation certificate from our program, adults must attend at least 8 classes as outlined above.
Youth classes can contain up to 30 children per class, and may meet for a minimum of 40 minutes, rather than one hour when a full hour is not available.

The Passaic County EFNEP program collaborates with the following types of agencies:

• Work First programs
• Adult education programs
• Domestic violence shelters
• Homeless shelters
• Drug rehabilitation programs
• Church groups
• Department of Recreation
• Schools
• After-school programs
• Summer programs
• Youth clubs