CIAO WIC Community Innovation and Outreach

Northeast Valley Health Corporation (NEVHC) plans to partner with California State University, Northridge (CSUN) Marilyn Magaram Center (MMC) to conduct outreach to our priority populations: 1) CSUN students, staff and faculty, and 2) African American population, both on campus and in the NEVHC?s service area (SPA 2). Our goals are to: 1) Increase WIC enrollment and retention in the priority population, 2) Increase awareness of the WIC Program and lactation spaces available on the CSUN campus community, and 3) Increase WIC participation at the CSUN WIC site. There are opportunities to use community assets at CSUN to address barriers that prevent our priority populations from using WIC services and resources. Through our five outreach activities, NEVHC and CSUN will increase WIC awareness, participation, enrollment, retention and engagement by utilizing on campus resources (i.e., Klotz Student Health Center, Black Scholars Matters, Associated Students Children?s Center, etc.) to conduct outreach (i.e., classroom presentations, tabling events, etc.). Additionally, NEVHC plans to conduct focus groups, key informant interviews, and surveys to understand barriers and awareness of WIC services and resources on campus. The lessons learned from this proposed outreach project will be shared at local symposiums, consortia, and conferences. Sharing the procedure/manual of outreach activities with others will allow for replication and scalability of program to other communities.