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The University of South Dakota Center for Prevention of Child Maltreatment’s project aimed to enhance outreach and increase WIC participation among families with children in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and the Mountain Plains region.
The project expanded partnerships between the Center for the Prevention of Child Maltreatment, the Center for Rural Health Improvement, the Department of Public Health at the University of South Dakota, and the South Dakota WIC State Agency.
The project’s outreach strategies focused on amplifying the voice of parenting adults. Through the use of an online platform, parents shared brief stories/narratives about WIC. These stories were analyzed for themes, and used to inform an outreach strategy to normalize help-seeking behaviors by parenting adults and to push against any stigma or pre-conceived ideas about parents who receive support.
Other WIC outreach efforts included bringing a mobile WIC unit to existing neighborhood cultural events and parks and offering several cross-training opportunities for WIC staff.
Lessons learned from the centering of parents’ voices will serve as a model for other WIC agencies and organizations within the comprehensive system serving families and young children.
