My practicum has been focusing on increasing the Utah WIC caseload through enhanced outreach efforts and focusing on customer service.  Our caseload has been declining over the past several years which prompted our Program Manager to send out a survey to all former WIC participants who self-terminated from the program.  400 responses were received from the 3,000 sent.  This gave us insight into why we are losing our participants and what we can to do to stop or at least slow the “bleeding.”

We’ve focused on reaching new participants through outreach efforts.  Over the past couple of months I have been in contact with several government organizations who share WIC clientele to provide outreach materials.  We have drafted a new WIC outreach handout that highlights the services WIC provides, our income guidelines, and our clinic locations around the state.  We’ve distributed over 6,000 of these in English and Spanish over the past two months.  The organizations we’ve distributed these to have been:

• Medicaid – State and private ACOs
• Utahns Against Hunger
• SNAP-Ed
• Baby Your Baby
• Utah Food Banks
• Utah Community Clinics

I’ve also networked with the staff in many of these organizations and connected them with local WIC staff to enhance referral services.

In order to maintain our current participation we’ve focused on creating a better experience in the clinic.  Many respondents to our survey highlighted negative experiences they’ve had in the WIC clinic and/or grocery stores that caused them to stop participation.  I’ve been focusing efforts on customer service training for WIC staff and exploring ways to enhance WIC employee morale which will then empower employees to provide better service to the public.