Awards issued prior to january 20, 2025, were funded under previous administrations and may not reflect the priorities and policies of the current administration.** we aim to address the shortage of…

Awards issued prior to january 20, 2025, were funded under previous administrations and may not reflect the priorities and policies of the current administration.** we aim to address the shortage of paraprofessionals in the special supplemental nutrition program for women, infants, and children (WIC) who have nutrition training and can provide culturally tailored nutrition education to the diverse communities served by WIC. Key to the recruitment and retention of paraprofessionals is the creation of a career and training pathway that is feasible and attractive for diverse employees from communities served by WIC. We will build upon 30 years of partnership with minnesota and wisconsin WIC, the association of state public health nutritionists (asphn), minnesota extension, and the minnesota community health worker alliance (mchwa) to:1. Conduct a national formative assessment of paraprofessional staffing models and training strategies to identify what efforts are working and for whom they are working, and to develop alternative position titles for paraprofessionals.2. Use human-centered design approaches to CO-create with WIC staff training and resources for prospective paraprofessionals, their supervisors, and other WIC staff at local and state agencies.3. Pilot training across local agencies within minnesota and wisconsin in diverse locations in which recruitment of registered dietitian nutritionists (rdns) is particularly challenging (isolated rural areas, tribal regions). We will use the RE-aim implementation science evaluation framework to examine the feasibility and effectiveness of the pilot training, which will provide the evidence based needed to work towards scalability. This cooperative agreement will enable US to build upon established partnerships and expand ongoing siloed efforts to create a strategic, scalable paraprofessional training model aligned with the WIC workforce development strategy.