Center for Innovative Practices in WIC (CIP-WIC)

Who is CIP-WIC?

The Center for Innovative Practices in WIC (CIP-WIC) is a team of subject matter experts in nutrition, lactation, research, policy, and best practices within the WIC program. We help WIC professionals access tools and resources that promote modernization and advance racial and health equity across service delivery. 

Priorities  |  Portfolios of Work  |  Research & Evaluation  |  Committees, Work Groups, and Coalitions  |  How to Get Involved

CIP-WIC drives innovation in WIC through three core strategies: providing expert technical assistance, elevating proven practices from the field, and fostering strong communities of practice.

Priorities:

• Diversify & strengthen the WIC workforce to enhance culturally responsive services and support.
• Center racial and health equity  in every aspect of  participant experience and WIC service delivery
• Build capacity for WIC research and data-driven analysis
• Drive program innovation to enhance the experience, increase recruitment and retention, and improve health outcomes
• Identify & share promising practices from Local and State WIC Agencies 
• Strengthen partnerships between WIC, maternal/child health providers, and other allied fields

Portfolios of Work

Nutrition/Breastfeeding

We protect and promote WIC’s role as the nation’s first food-as-medicine program. 

• Nutrition
  • Protecting the scientific integrity of the WIC food package
  • Participating in the updates to the Dietary Guidelines for Americans
  • Providing public comment on nutrition-related policies 
• Breastfeeding
  • Promoting breastfeeding as the standard for infant feeding
  • Leading NWA’s World Breastfeeding Week & National Breastfeeding Month activities
  • Coordinating breastfeeding-related public comment opportunities 

Technology & Innovation

Modernizing WIC to improve the WIC participant experience.

• Strengthening Information Exchange between WIC and Healthcare Providers: A project funded by the Kaiser Permanente National Community Benefit Fund at the East Bay Community Foundation to strengthen referral and data sharing processes. Learn more here. Join the WIC Technology Community of Practice open to NWA members here.
• Other Technology & Innovation Work: Sharing promising practices and resources related to WIC technology, including WIC online shopping, data sharing, and more through NWA webinars, newsletters, and on the WIC Hub.

Health Equity

Advancing equity across WIC and beyond by:

• Dismantling systemic barriers and centering the voices of historically marginalized communities to ensure all families—regardless of race, ethnicity, income, language, or geography—can access and fully benefit from WIC services.
•  Conducting and translating equity-centered research to inform the development of inclusive policies and service delivery improvements. 
• Partnering with WIC Agencies, community organizations, and government stakeholders to co-design solutions that address structural inequities, including food insecurity, maternal and infant health disparities, and barriers to enrollment and retention.

Key Resources:

• NWA 2023 Research Framework
• NWA 2022-2023 Research Priorities

Workforce Development

Strengthening and diversifying the WIC workforce by:

• Addressing recruitment and retention  barriers and opportunities for competent paraprofessional authorities (CPPA)
• Forging pathways to better serve participants by increasing cultural competency

Research & Evaluation

Leveraging research, data, and evaluation to inform policy and guide practice. 

Major Projects:

• Advancing Health Equity to Achieve Diversity and Inclusion in WIC (AHEAD) 3.0: Journey Mapping to identify enrollment, participation, retention, and service delivery barriers, redesigning the Participant Advisory Council (PAC) to include Black, Brown, Indigenous, and geographically diverse WIC participants to gather direct feedback on their experiences, and conduct the 2025 Multi-State WIC Participant Satisfaction Survey, which will inform efforts to enhance WIC program participation, operations, satisfaction, and retention. The 2025 Survey will be the third iteration of the Multi-State Survey. 

Please view the findings and reports of previous iterations here:

• 2021 Survey Reports & Briefs:
  • Multi-state WIC Participant Satisfaction Survey: Learning from Program Adaptations During COVID
  • Multi-State WIC Participant Satisfaction Survey: Cash Value Benefit Increase During COVID
  • Participants New to WIC May Benefit from More Guidance on Shopping for WIC Foods
  • Participant Recommendations for Improving the WIC Food Package: Evaluating Data from the 2021 Multi-State Participant Satisfaction Survey
  • Policy brief: Evidence to support continuation of the increased WIC Cash Value Benefit for fruits and vegetables.
• 2023 Survey Reports & Briefs:
  • 2023 Multi-State WIC Participant Satisfaction Survey
  • Expanded Shopping Options Needed to Improve WIC Participants’ Shopping Experience
  • WIC App Modifications Needed to Improve WIC Participants’ Shopping Experience
• WIC Farmers’ Market Nutrition Program (FMNP): The Increasing Access to Healthy Food Through Farmers’ Markets Initiative grant, funded by the Elevance Health Foundation, is a 3-year project designed to help families on WIC redeem their benefits at farmers’ markets, making it easier for those families to purchase fruits and vegetables. This project aims to increase the redemption of WIC Cash Value Benefits (CVB) and WIC FMNP  benefits by conducting and publishing a landscape scan of current practices and needs for support among WIC Agencies, developing toolkits, and promoting promising practices.
  • NWA-developed resources: 
    • FMNP Landscape Scan Report: Guided by an equity-focused, mixed-methods approach, this evaluation draws on data from the NWA’s Farmers’ Market Landscape Analysis Survey with responses from 32 WIC Agencies across 27 states and in-depth interviews with 26 WIC stakeholders across six states. The report highlights promising practices that can enhance program accessibility and improve redemption rates. 
    • An FMNP Social Media Toolkit: Guided by the Landscape Scan Report, this social media toolkit is designed to address participation gaps by offering resources and engaging content to promote the program effectively. The Toolkit includes social media strategies, templates for individual State Agency tailoring, as well as FMNP social media posts.
    • FMNP Community of Practice (online available to NWA State and Local Agency members via the Online Community): The WIC FMNP Community of Practice is a collaborative space for sharing best practices and resources, exploring challenges, and advancing the WIC FMNP through innovative solutions. The Community of Practice aims to strengthen FMNP implementation and increase the use of FMNP and WIC Cash Value Benefit (CVB) benefits at farmers’ markets.  

Key Resources:

• 2023 Applied Research Framework
• 2022-2023 NWA Research Priorities

CIP-WIC Blogs

• Strengthening WIC’s Workforce and Championing DEI: NWA’s Commitment to Advancing Health Equity
• Championing Black Maternal Health: WIC as a Catalyst for Change
• Creating a Culture of Belonging in WIC – A Vision for Maternal and Infant Health
• NWA Partners with Third Settlements to Advance EDIB 

Committees, Work Groups, and Coalitions

CIP-WIC represents NWA across multiple collaborative spaces, including: 

• NWA Committees
  • Breastfeeding Section Standing Committee: The goal of the Breastfeeding Section Standing Committee procedures is to clarify guidance related to the structure, focus, and processes of the five section standing committees.Breastfeeding Committee: The Breastfeeding Committee develops recommendations and standards to promote and support breastfeeding among mothers participating in the WIC Program. This Committee also works to encourage the active promotion of breastfeeding by NWA members.
  • Nutrition Section Standing Committee: The Nutrition Services Section Standing Committee is comprised of one State Nutrition Coordinator or state-level nutrition services staff member from each of the seven (7) regions: Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, Midwest, Mountain Plains, Southeast, Southwest, and Western.
  • Vendor Section Standing Committee: The Vendor Section Standing Committee is comprised of one state-level vendor management staff member from each of the seven (7) regions: Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, Midwest, Mountain Plains, Southeast, Southwest, and Western.
  • Evaluation Committee: The Committee’s charge is to identify research areas that support NWA and WIC programs nationwide, provide guidance to academic and other external research partners to support research and evaluation activities, and bolster resources and capacity for evaluation at the State and agency levels.
  • Farmers’ Market Programs Committee: Monitors and disseminates promising practices related to the use of WIC at farmers’ markets, including the Cash Value Benefit (CVB) and the WIC Farmers Market Nutrition Program (WIC FMNP). The committee also identifies opportunities for collaboration between WIC FMNP and the Senior Farmers Market Nutrition Program (SFMNP) and develops recommendations on opportunities to streamline programmatic efficiency and benefits delivery.
  • Infant and Maternal Mortality in the WIC Committee: This committee examines available research on WIC participation and infant and maternal mortality to identify best practices for addressing these issues, while analyzing methods to reduce the incidence of infant and maternal mortality within the WIC program.
  • Risk Identification and Selection Collaborative (RISC): a partnership between USDA and NWA to promote ongoing review and development of appropriate nutrition risk criteria for consistent application in the WIC Program.
  • WIC Workforce Development Committee: Focuses on professional development pathways and opportunities for achieving and maintaining credentials valuable to the WIC Workforce (to include RD, IBCLC, CLC, NTDR, CPA, CPPA, etc.) Considers and makes recommendations related to funding, staffing, staffing processes, ratios, priorities, and indirect costs, to ensure continued recruitment and retention of a diverse WIC staff.
• WIC Access Group: A coalition of organizations, co-led by NWA and the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, working to improve access to WIC. The group meets to share knowledge, foster partnerships, and work on a wide range of topics related to increasing access to WIC, including outreach strategies, data matching, ongoing policy priorities, and research.
• WIC Research Learning Collaborative is led by the Nutrition and Obesity Policy and Research Network (NOPREN) and Healthy Eating Research (HER), where researchers and practitioners engage to discuss new research, evaluation, policy, and practice in the WIC space. 

How to get involved:

 

Past CIP-WIC newsletters: January 2025 - June 2025 

For questions, contact us at [email protected].