Shreen Al-Laham; Childhood Obesity

Shereen Al-Laham is leading the NEON (Nurture Early for Optimal Nutrition) programme. She used the Fellowship to create a video for the NEON programme to target policymakers.

Shereen Al-Laham is leading the NEON (Nurture Early for Optimal Nutrition) programme and has worked closely with the community to co-develop interventions. However, she realised that long-term impact cannot be achieved unless findings are translated into policy.

To achieve policy impact, she used the Fellowship to create a video for the NEON programme that targets policymakers and highlights the importance of this programme and what changes are needed in practice.

To maximise impact, Shereen identified key partners to work with, including a public health strategist at Newham Council, the principal investigator of the research programme at UCL and two of the community facilitators she worked within the study, one partner from Tower Hamlets Council and a representative from an NGO.

Shereen collaborated with her partners to write a script for the video that highlights:

1. What the problem is
2. What the solution is
3. How the solution benefits the community
4. What is next, a call for action.

Through the process of writing the script, she identified content that could also be visually displayed in the video, including infographics and clips of interviews with the partners.

To explore ways that interventions and solutions presented in the video could be implemented in practice, the partners were also invited to a virtual roundtable discussion that provided participants with the opportunity to share their thoughts about the NEON programme and identify routes for policy change.