The WIC and Head Start programs share common goals. Both programs strive to promote positive health and nutrition status for young families. Both programs provide young children and families with nutritious foods, health and nutrition education, and assistance in accessing on-going preventive health care. In many communities, WIC and Head Start serve the same families. By working together, programs have an opportunity to coordinate these services and maximize use of scarce resources (e.g., funding, staff, space). Working together can mean minimizing duplicative efforts on the part of families and staff; more opportunities for WIC and Head Start to benefit from each program’s strengths, expertise and best practices; and ultimately, more ways to make a positive impact on good health and nutrition for children and families.
The Food and Nutrition Service (FNS), which administers the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), asked Mathematica Policy Research to examine more closely Medicaid's role in adjunct eligible for WIC and do not have to show further proof of income to qualify.
The Child Nutrition Reauthorization Act of 1998 requires CACFP state agencies to distribute WIC benefits and eligibility standards information to child care centers and each family and group day care home.
This memorandum addresses a broad range of issues regarding outreach strategies that WIC state and local agencies are encouraged to undertake to assist in identifying, educating, and referring uninsured children to and/or facilitate their enrollment in CHIP or Medicaid.
This policy memorandum clarifies the impact of the new Children's Health Insurance Program on WIC adjunct income eligibility.
The purpose of this policy memorandum is to highlight and strengthen national program policy regarding integrity in the WIC certification process through existing regulatory requirements as well as through new legislative requirements mandated by PL 105-336.
This report reviews recent approaches to estimating the numbers of persons eligible for and participating in WIC. It also describes issues concerning these estimates that may be worthy of review and synthesizes research on these issues.