Recently, Feeding Matters has been working closely with the Arizona Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) program. WIC is the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) which provides US federal grants to states for supplemental foods, health care referrals, and nutrition education for low-income pregnant, breastfeeding, and non-breastfeeding postpartum women, and to infants and children up to age 5 who are found to be at nutritional risk.

We are excited to share that as a result of our relationship with Arizona WIC, the nutrition coordinators and directors, who are the front line folks supporting families eligible for this program, have been trained on pediatric feeding disorder (PFD). Specifically, Arizona WIC coordinators and directors are trained on the PFD Co-Morbidity and WIC Risk Code spreadsheet so that any time one of them uses one of the codes associated with PFD, they will be prompted to refer the family to Feeding Matters and our Infant and Child Feeding Questionnaire. For example, if a child eligible for Arizona WIC is noted as having a genetic or congenital condition, they would be referred to Feeding Matters, specifically to our questionnaire to dig in deeper on their child’s feeding and have a source of support through us.

“This collaboration between the Arizona WIC Program and Feeding Matters ensures that children who have a known condition that often co-occurs with pediatric feeding disorder are more easily identified, identified quickly, and are referred to Feeding Matters to get the support they need.”
Brittany Howard, MS, RDN, CLC (WIC Nutrition Services Administrator)

The collaboration does not end there. They have also added Feeding Matters as a resource to their online education courses that they offer to all of their staff.

We know that PFD impacts one in 37 children under the age of five in the United States and are confident that this partnership will lead to earlier identification and intervention of children with PFD.