The Cornell Health Impacts Core (or The Core), works collaboratively with partners to enhance their capacity to design and deliver effective public health programs. The Core has a proven track-record of supporting diverse programs across the United States and globally, including many focused on strengthening the public health workforce. Building on that, we are thrilled to announce that Dr. Elizabeth Fox and Dr. Gen Meredith, and The Core staff, have been funded to help strengthen the WIC Workforce. 

WIC is short for the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, one of the most effective public health programs in the United States. WIC provides resources and nutritious food, information on healthy eating, and guidance on access to other services to low-income women who are pregnant or post-partum, and infants and children up to age five. However, despite the successes of the WIC program, implementing agencies face challenges recruiting and retaining a skilled workforce, and there is a known gap in enrollment and retention of eligible beneficiaries, meaning those who should and could receive WIC benefits may not be participating. 

As defined by the WIC Workforce National Strategy, supported by both the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) and the USDA Food and Nutrition Services (FNS), WIC seeks to close these gaps by exploring ways to recruit, equip, and retain a more diverse and competent workforce that is representative of the WIC populations being served. Our project will focus on WIC paraprofessionals who provide critical support and services, and experience vast differences in roles and responsibilities from state to state. 

Over the next four years, we will draw upon The Core’s expertise with WIC and public health workforce development and collaborate with USDA, the Center for Nutrition & Health Impact, Cornell colleagues in the Division of Nutritional Sciences, and other context experts to help refine guidance related to roles and responsibilities of WIC paraprofessionals, and evaluate effective pathways for recruitment and retention of a skilled and culturally competent WIC workforce. Specifically, we aim to explore and address barriers to recruitment and retention of WIC paraprofessionals, and identify innovative practices that (a) build capacity among locally recruited staff, equipping them to be skilled paraprofessionals who can support low-risk individuals, and (b) create working conditions that entice trained WIC staff to stay, serve, and grow in their roles.