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(Media contact: press@usda.gov)
WASHINGTON, Oct. 30, 2024 –
The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) today announced a $29 million investment into programs supporting the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) Workforce National Strategy. The investment will fund eight projects that support WIC workforce development by addressing the workforce needs of WIC agencies, enhancing diversity and cultural competency, and increasing the uptake of WIC benefits and services. Celebrating its 50th anniversary, WIC is widely regarded as one of the nation’s most effective public health programs. WIC improves the health of low-income pregnant, postpartum and breastfeeding women, and infants and children up to age five by providing nutritious foods, information on healthy eating including breastfeeding promotion and support, and referrals to health care and other social services.
The WIC Workforce National Strategy is part of a joint agency effort between the USDA Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) and the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA). This initiative is expected to cultivate comprehensive and sustained solutions for WIC workforce development.
The joint agency initiative aims to strengthen the diversity and cultural competency of the WIC workforce and increase WIC participation through connecting with those populations that are eligible but not enrolled. It also encourages WIC participants’ use of benefits and services, including nutrition education and breastfeeding support, through more culturally responsive care.
“WIC has a decades-long history of providing high-quality services, and these new investments will provide tremendous opportunities to bolster and support a strong WIC workforce,” said NIFA Director Dr. Manjit Misra. “Not only will these efforts result in a WIC workforce that better reflects the program’s participants, but they also support USDA’s priority of advancing racial justice, equity and opportunity.”
This investment will fund projects that include providing scholarships for the training and credentialing of WIC staff; developing training models and pilots related to training materials and paraprofessional and career ladder development, including recruitment and retention strategies; and creating a WIC Workforce Evaluation and Technical Assistance Center.
Among the eight funded projects are the following.
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The University of Minnesota will identify effective WIC staffing models for diverse contexts, including necessary roles and responsibilities of all levels of WIC positions; the experiences, skills and competencies needed to successfully accomplish the roles and responsibilities; processes and strategies for supporting organizational change to adopt effective staffing structures; and provide learnings for leaders and supervisors to develop skills to monitor the impact of staffing change efforts.
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The Rochester Institute of Technology Inc. in Rochester, New York, will work to identify, assess, recommend and pilot effective scholarships and funding programs, particularly those targeting people of color for careers and career advancement in WIC and related fields.
These WIC workforce efforts are aligned with the Biden-Harris administration’s National Strategy pillar to better integrate nutrition and health, released in conjunction with the historic White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition and Health in September 2022.
To learn more about efforts to modernize and improve WIC, visit the FNS website.
Through investments in science as a solution to our greatest challenges, USDA NIFA collaborates with partners to drive research, education and Extension — improving lives, supporting livelihoods and sustaining the planet. In FY 2023, NIFA’s total scientific investment was $2.5 billion.
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