WIC Family leaders from CHP attend conference in Washington
Great Barrington — Community Health Programs (CHP) sent two of its Family Service leaders to a special White House event this past weekend to recognize their successful leadership of CHP’s Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) nutrition program in southern Berkshire County.
Michelle Derr, CHP’s Director of WIC Family Services, and Mary Feuer, CHP WIC Assistant Director, are attending the National WIC Association Leadership Conference in Washington, D.C., that began Sunday, February 28 and will continue through Tuesday, March 1. The conference provides advocacy and policy training and a forum for discussing federal initiatives impacting the health and nutritional wellbeing of WIC mothers and young children.
The invitation followed CHP WIC’s steady success in enrolling eligible pregnant women during their first trimester of pregnancy, a key measure of WIC success. While CHP consistently exceeds the statewide WIC average of about 40 percent for enrolling newly pregnant women, CHP topped all of the state’s WIC programs with a 73 percent enrollment rate.
“This is great news for our community’s pregnant women and their children,” said Derr. “What this high enrollment means is that we have a strong collaboration with our local obstetricians and we have a very effective community outreach and networking program.”
In January CHP recorded that a perfect 100 percent of WIC women attended their appointments with WIC staff, and 86 percent of WIC parents bought fresh fruit and vegetables with their nutrition benefits. Mothers in CHP’s WIC program also breastfeed their children longer than other WIC mothers around the state.
The CHP WIC program goes beyond the federal mandate for providing supplemental nutrition benefits and counseling: CHP offers cooking and other classes for parents and young children regardless of whether or not they are eligible for WIC.
–E.E.
