Wisconsin WIC Program
The purpose of the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) is to promote and maintain the health and well being of nutritionally at-risk pregnant, breastfeeding and postpartum women, infants and children.
WIC provides supplemental nutritious foods, nutrition and breastfeeding information, and referral to other health and nutrition services. WIC promotes and supports breastfeeding.
To be eligible for WIC benefits in Wisconsin, a person must meet the following requirements:
• Be a pregnant, breastfeeding or new mother; be an infant up to age one; or be a child up to age 5; and
• Be a resident of Wisconsin; and
• Be income eligible; and
• Have a health or nutrition need.
Hear the Cry of the Poor
I’m just a small town girl who led a fairly sheltered life growing up in a large, Catholic family. When I moved to Milwaukee to become educated in dietetics I was quite naïve. Part of my training included some time spent in the inner city working at a WIC clinic. I absolutely hated it! I found the clients to be extremely rude and poorly behaved. I heard so many swear words that it broke my heart because children were everywhere. None of the clients were the list bit interested in attending my nutrition classes. It seemed they just wanted to receive their food vouchers and be on their way as quickly as possible. When my WIC internship was completed, I swore that I would never work at WIC as long as I lived! Over the years I worked at hospitals and nursing homes in both clinical nutrition settings and in food service administration and was quite content.
As time passed, I met Paul, the love of my life. We married and quickly began a family. We were a happy middle class family with the birth of our first son, John. Justin came along shortly after, followed quite quickly by Joe (they are each a little over a year apart in age). While I was pregnant with Joe, it was decided that I would quit my job to care for our three children at home. It was shortly after I quit, that Paul lost his job. How quickly the shoe falls on the other foot! I had haughtily swore off WIC as a career choice, but ran to them for help as soon as my own family was in need. Like most first time WIC clients, I was humbled and nervous about applying for benefits. I felt like I didn’t belong and was very uncomfortable. But the wonderful staff at the WIC Clinic treated me so kindly, that my discomfort soon wore away and I was very grateful for the dignity they provided me, as well as the relief that the WIC benefits brought to my grocery budget with vouchers for milk, cheese, eggs, cereal and peanut butter.
Paul soon found another job, but with one income, which was lower than that to which we had previously earned and with three children depending upon us, we still qualified for WIC benefits, and continued to qualify until the youngest of our five children turned five years old.
Paul and I decided that I should return to work to help support the family financially. After finding a temporary job at a bookbinding company, I was thrilled to see an advertisement in our local paper for a Nutritionist for the WIC program. Now that I had experienced first hand the great benefits of being enrolled in the WIC program and had also personally experienced motherhood, I knew that I would be better able to handle working in a WIC clinic than I would have been as a 20 year old inexperienced girl. I applied for the job and was thrilled to get it!
But that thrill wore off pretty quickly. I began by working 20 hours a week. Just as my workday was ending, I would arrive home in time for Paul to leave for his new job as a chef at a local country club. He’d pass off the three little ones to me and take his tired body off to work. We were both quite exhausted by our schedules and the demands of three babies at home. Our communication had whittled down to a nearly snarled “hello” and “good-bye” in passing. Not much fun.
On top of that, I didn’t have a clue about all of the rules and regulations that the State required the WIC Program employees and participants to follow. It was like going back to school to learn new career skills. Neither of my two coworkers who were hired with me had any previous WIC experience either. We were hired to open a new WIC Clinic inside of a hospital and we were all as green as could be. Our manager at the time was not the nicest boss in the world, to put it kindly. Her favorite word contained four letters and began with an “f”. She was always mad at someone. Can you say “stress”?
To make matters worse, the newspapers were full of stories of child abuse and neglect. It was so hard to read those stories and then go to work and hear women tell their babies to “shut up your ugly face.”
I went home every day for the first three months and cried. My only consolation was reuniting with six-month-old Joe and nursing him while reading stories to John and Justin who were toddlers at the time. Those wonderful breastfeeding hormones helped me to calm down and re-gear my attitude toward loving mother instead of stressed out employee. I gave thanks to God for my wonderful family and also for the ability to provide for them along with my husband. In time, I became competent in my position, I learned to cope with mother’s whose parenting skills left much to be desired and found ways to gently nudge them toward treating their children with more love and respect. Also, my mean foul-mouthed boss left for another position after six months and she was replaced by one of the dietitians with whom I was hired and who is still a wonderful boss today. But, best of all, Paul found a better paying job that allowed me to cut my hours down to a four-hour shift every Saturday. I felt extremely blessed. I was a stay-at-home mom with my children during those precious, fleeting years while they were small, yet every Saturday I had a four hour escape to the work world, where I could keep my foot in the door for the day when I might need to pick up more hours to help support my family once again.
Today I have been at my job for 13 years. I currently work between 24-30 hours a week. My boss is wonderful. I love my coworkers; we all get along very well. (Although we all come from different faith backgrounds, I sometimes think of us as a little community of religious sisters serving the Lord by serving the poor.) I love that I am able to help women to be the best mothers they can possibly be. And I love that I am able to learn so much from the poor. Most often I find that I am the poor one in need of the love that the clients are able to share with me.
I can’t say that my job is always easy, in fact, most days I am quite challenged by the variety of people and situations that I encounter. My job as a WIC Nutritionist entails screening the clients for a nutrition need such as a low iron level, underweight or overweight or poor dietary nutrient intake. I then counsel the women on how best to meet the particular nutrition needs of her family while staying within her food budget. But very often, my visits with the clients cover areas far beyond the nutrition needs of the family. Many times, I end up giving referrals to dentists because the children’s teeth have decayed, or I assist in finding a homeless shelter or food pantry. Sometimes a mother will need help in finding someone to screen her child for a developmental delay or in locating a safe place to stay to escape her abusive boyfriend
I can go from visiting with a married mother of three small children who struggles because her baby won’t latch for breastfeeding, to a 13 year old frightened pregnant girl, to families who recently emigrated from Nigeria, or Laos or Pakistan and speak very little English, to a woman who lost custody of her baby because of her drug use. I see mothers of children who are sick and in intensive care or who have medical disabilities, I see women who have callously aborted their babies and I see women who desperately want a child but continually suffer miscarriages. In all of these situations, I do my best to refrain from being judgmental about their situations and instead look to see Jesus within them. I know He’s there. Sometimes it’s a little harder to see Him, but if I am patient and gentle, He always reveals Himself to me somehow. As I quietly listen to the voices of the mother and children who visit with me in my office, I can hear Him in the cry of the poor.
Whether the clients I serve are single or married, young teenagers or what is medically called ‘advanced maternal age’ (over 35 years), faith-filled or faith-less, I find that it is I who grows in faith, love and joy each day through my service to these women and their children in the WIC Clinic.
