Participant-Centered Nutrition Assessment

Nutrition assessment and education are the heart of WIC’s nutrition services. The goal of a comprehensive nutrition and health assessment is to uncover the core needs and interests of WIC families. WIC staff must often balance competing priorities during the WIC assessment, such as collecting accurate and useful data while keeping focus on the participant and not overwhelming them with too much information or too many questions. During this webinar, we will explore tools and techniques to focus the WIC appointment on elements that are most meaningful for each family. This webinar will also provide strategies to address sensitive topics during the assessment process, helping participants share openly about their concerns and motivations.

Effective Goal Setting and Information Sharing in WIC

Goal setting with participants around healthy nutrition-related behaviors is an important role of WIC nutrition counselors. During this webinar, we will discuss common challenges and best practices around goal-setting in WIC. We will explore strategies to help build motivation and turn that motivation into plans for action, increasing the likelihood that positive changes take place. To support participants, WIC staff often choose to share ideas, strategies, and nutrition education. It can often be challenging to know when information is needed around an identified nutritional risk, and how best to share that information with participants. During this webinar, we will discuss tips for assessing knowledge gaps, when to share nutrition information or advice, and how to communicate that in a way that reinforces non-judgement and will not increase participant-resistance.