Attachment C - WIC Food Center Information.docx

Attachment C - WIC Food Center Information

Programmatic and Metro Chicago Economic Development Impacts

WIC Food and Nutrition Centers are a service-based, non-traditional primary food outlet designed specifically to respond to the broader needs of WIC participants. They provide a safe shopping experience not generally offered by the inner-city retail marketplace, they are close to the WIC participants’ homes and offer an array of social services meeting the many needs of the client base. Their flexibility in design and ability to be tailored for community needs make WIC Food and Nutrition Centers an asset for any community.

Traditionally, WIC foods are distributed through retail stores, or less commonly, through direct distribution. The WIC Food and Nutrition Centers approach has changed not only the service delivery system, it has incorporated elements which allow families to care physically and emotionally for their families to prosper and succeed in their lives.

WIC Food Centers are not just a source for food; they round out the supportive services essential to success and the transition from welfare to work. WIC food benefits provide the foundation for the centers, which have become full-service neighborhood facilities with on-site nutrition education, health screening, employment opportunities, job training and referrals for additional social services at a single site.

The major purpose of the WIC Food and Nutrition Center Project is to provide supplemental foods, nutrition education, referrals for other needed social services to low income pregnant, lactating and post-partum women, infants and children under the age of 5. In addition, these unique centers provide safe and accessible shopping in locations close to clients’ homes. They offer a full range of WIC food, provide on-site nutrition education, health screening, employment opportunities, job training and referrals for additional social services at a single site. Not only does this program serve its intended purpose, it also reduces vendor fraud and abuse while stimulating community development in deteriorating neighborhoods.

WIC Food and Nutrition Centers reflect a successful partnership involving a state agency, a not-for-profit community agency, grocery chains, wholesale suppliers, property owners and developers, and a world-wide business consulting firm. Landlords have rehabilitated substandard buildings, bringing them up to code, improving the inside and outside appearance. These good-as-new buildings are leased by WIC’s community partner and administrator for the WIC program, Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Chicago, and serve as an anchor for further community development.

Many Centers are located near existing health and social service agencies that provide medical services (prenatal care, school physical examinations, immunizations), and offer family case management and linkage to job training and other invaluable resources needed to support the family. Some centers are co-located with WIC local agencies.

The WIC Food Centers design addresses the multitude of problems associated with food shopping in many large urban areas nationwide. Major chain supermarkets close their outlets in these neighborhoods, leaving residents without access to the fresh food items, varieties of merchandise and fair market prices for goods.

As with other benefit programs, WIC benefits were found to be sold for cash and/or used for non-authorized products. To address this problem, WIC Food Centers only provide foods to valid WIC EBT cardholders, and only stock WIC authorized foods. The WIC EBT cards have no cash value. This has served a dual purpose: it places the WIC participant at less risk of robbery and reduces unauthorized purchases.

Studies by DHS Bureau of Family Nutrition staff determined the areas in Chicago in which clients could be served best by WIC Food Centers, and centers were established in those neighborhoods. Clients enrolled in any clinic may visit any WIC Food Center.

When a participant arrives at a Food Center, she is greeted by a staff member, shows her WIC EBT card and signs in at the customer service desk. Young children are signed in at the “kiddie corral,” where they are supervised by a specialized care giver. Older children and others accompanying the client remain in the main waiting area; they are not allowed in the shopping area for safety reasons, to prevent shoplifting and loss and to make sure that clients have the time they need to make their selections.

The customer takes a shopping cart and selects her food. Food Center staff are generally available to answer questions and to assist. Just as in a grocery store, when the customer finishes shopping, she goes to the cashier where she pays for her products with Food Coupons. WIC products are bagged in sacks especially printed for Food Centers that carry health-related messages in English and Spanish.

Food Centers offer a rotating schedule of nutrition education opportunities as well as health screenings and referrals to other services. Classes are presented by WIC Food Center employees, and special presentations are offered by qualified volunteers. Nutrition education delivered in this setting reinforces the information the participant receives at the WIC clinic. If the client chooses to participate in these activities, her children may remain in the kiddie corral.

Food Centers are operated through a grant to Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Chicago. In consultation with DHS Bureau of Family Nutrition staff, Catholic Charities locates and leases buildings, contracts for and oversees remodeling, employs and trains staff, purchases stock, and handles the day-to-day operation of the centers.

Employment opportunities include managers, assistant managers, support service coordinators, site engineers, kiddie corral room attendants, service clerks. In addition, there are regional or area managers, clerical staff, and messengers. The warehousing operation employs a director, manager, supervisors, service coordinators and truck drivers.

The project uses a variety of employee recruitment methods. Positions are usually announced within Catholic Charities and may be posted with outside advertisers including newspapers serving the community. Applicants are often accepted from employee referrals, from public and private employment agencies, career oriented high-school youths (through the WIC Food Centers High School Employment Program) and temporary help services. Job opportunities and training are offered to those traditionally perceived as difficult to train or to place in a job setting, such as welfare recipients, those with a history of job instability or chronic unemployment, backgrounds that include a criminal record due to heavy use and/or abuse of alcohol and other drugs, and people who are in drug rehabilitation programs. Strong efforts are employed to hire from communities surrounding Food Centers.

Employees are promoted from within and moved to other sites as opportunities become available. They are encouraged to take advantage of educational opportunities, and tuition payment may be available. The knowledge, skills, and work ethic that Food Center staff develop are portable to private sector employment in retail, the hospitality industry, in food processing and in food service.

Economic development and improved access to other health and social services are being achieved. Food Centers have proven to be a catalyst for neighborhood redevelopment. Examples from several neighborhoods in which WIC Food Centers have spurred revitalization include: the transformation of an empty warehouse section into a vital health and social service campus housing a variety of social service agencies; the development of a medical clinic in abandoned retail space in an urban shopping area (the increased traffic and general positive atmosphere has served to revitalize the surrounding urban shopping area); with the conversion of an abandoned fish market to a Food Center, other investors located an integrated, full-service facility providing WIC clinic services, a full service medical clinic, and a family case management agency providing a variety of social services.

Employment opportunities have been realized. Food Centers employ 300-350 full-time, paid staff, many of whom previously were unemployed, marginally employed, or on welfare, reflecting the current trend of welfare to work. These full-time jobs pay above the minimum wage and provide fringe benefits. Their families enjoy an improved standard of living and children benefit from the example of successful employment. High School students (juniors or seniors meeting academic and previous work experience standards) are hired as part-time service clerks through the WIC Food Centers High School Employment Program. Volunteer services range from cooking demonstrations by professional chefs to child supervision by senior citizens.

Food Center Location Map

DIFFERENCES IN FOOD CENTER BUSINESS PROCESSES

The business processes related to vendor management for the Chicago Food Centers have been modified from the traditional retail environment to accommodate their special relationship to the State agency. While, like the traditional environment, the Food Centers operate using the same EBT card that can be used in authorized WIC food vendors, it varies from the traditional retail environment in the following way:

1. The Food Centers have received a grant from the State for its annual operation, thus the Food Centers have, in essence, been paid up front for the food and their operating costs so there is essentially no traditional bank transaction, reconciliation or settlement.

2. There is no mixed basket transaction in a Food Center; they only deal in WIC food products and serve only WIC clients.

The Food Centers use the same EBT services as other authorized vendors, however reconciliation and payment vary. Payments to Catholic Charities are made from the State monthly based on expenditure documentation submitted to the State. Catholic Charities collects redemption data tracked in their inventory system to build required reports for their accounting and record keeping systems. Paid amounts for each item and for the overall transaction are zero-based; payment amounts are zero dollars. Illinois uses one Authorized Product List (APL) for all authorized vendors, including the Food Centers.

This unique and innovative program has received recognition almost since its inception. One of the first awards it received was the 1994 USDA Food & Nutrition Service Administrators’ Citation for Innovation. This prestigious national award is conferred annually to the State, Territorial or Tribal agency exemplifying the highest standards in innovation. In 1998, the program earned extensive recognition, as the recipient of the inaugural Dan Glickman Pyramid of Excellence Award for Food, Nutrition and Consumer Services; as a semi-finalist in the highly-regarded Innovations in American Government program, which is a program of the Ford Foundation and Harvard University’s A. Alfred Taubman Center for State and Local Government, John F. Kennedy School of Government; and as a semi-finalist in the Council of State Governments Innovations award program and participant in the Innovations Exchange at the Council’s annual meeting.

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