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Friday
March 29th, 2024

wic office newWIC employee Melissa Emery, right, talks to one of her coworkers in the new office for the program. L&T photo/Robert PierceROBERT PIERCE • Leader & Times

 

As nutrition and public health professionals, officials with Seward County’s Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program see the direct impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on families raising young children.

In this time of incredible uncertainty, the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for WIC provides crucial nutrition and breastfeeding support for pregnant and postpartum women, babies and young children to age 5. Since March, Seward County WIC, along with all Kansas WIC providers, have adapted in record time to shift the way families are served by transitioning from in-person to remote and safe services.

“Families are not only dealing with the stress of the pandemic while caring for children but also struggling with job losses and lost income,” Seward County WIC Director Tiffani Krause said in press release. “Every day, new families turn to WIC for support, and our clinics now have the option to onboard these families by phone other remote means.”

With the everyday concern families feel about the risk of COVID-19 exposure, Congress granted the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) new authority to waive in-person requirements for WIC providers through the end of September.

“As infection rates continue to climb and states constantly adjust or modify their reopening plans, WIC will be adjusting as needed to keep our staff and clients safe,” Krause said in the release.

In an interview earlier this month, Krause said the waiver is nationwide and not just for Kansas.

“What it is it just says we do not have to do hemoglobins,” she said. “It deferred until Oct. 1. What happened before is it was until, I think, June 30. They extended it, and now it’s October. This all had to go before Congress, it’s gone a couple of times so far, and before Oct. 1, they’ll look at that again. If the numbers continue to go up, they will probably extend that waiver again.”

Krause said Seward County WIC plans to continue services remotely until Oct. 1, and she would also like to announce offices have been moved to what will soon be the new of the Seward County Health Department at 1411 W. 15th Street in Suite 102 in Liberal.

“Our move date was July 20 and 21,” she said. “We moved all that week. We never really closed WIC services. We had two people doing appointments. The rest of us were moving boxes and moving over here.”

In the short time the WIC department has been in the new building, Krause said little change has been seen due to the remote operations for clients, something the programs has been doing since April

“It hasn’t been a big change for us yet,” she said. “We sent out lots of letters telling people we moved. Moving into new spots, finding where to put things is always fun. We’re not 100 percent moved in, but so far, we’re pretty well organized.”

Unlike the new location, Krause said when the COVID pandemic started, WIC workers did see a big change, and this was mostly due to the change from seeing clients in office to dealing with them remotely.

“We had to make big changes really quickly and figure out we were going to see everybody remotely,” she said. “We did have the choice where we could still see them in our office, but with the numbers going up so quickly in Liberal as they did, we ended up going the remote route really quickly and the biggest thing was just getting into the groove of doing everything remotely, figuring out how to see clients and what to ask. We had a lot of guidance from our state agency on how to do that. They got on it really quickly.”

Krause said she does have some concerns about the colder weather coming later this year, which typically brings about flu season, and she said she is worried about numbers from that illness affecting the figures for coronavirus.

“It comes with all the flu symptoms, which is a lot of the same as COVID-19,” she said. “We will continue to screen clients when we do open. They will have to be screened. They’ll get the CDC recommendation screening if they’ve left and went to any state that is high in COVID-19 cases or if they have been on a cruise or a river cruise, if they have been out of the country. We won’t let them in. We’ll do theirs remotely at that point.”

One thing Krause loves about the new location is better parking and safety for children from the department’s original Second Street location.

“The old health department, we cater mainly to young kids and pregnant women and babies,” she said. “When you’re crossing those roads all the time just to get to your appointment, you just close your eyes a lot of times because you wouldn’t know what was going to happen. Plus there’s a lot of traffic on Second Street. It’s kind of a dangerous parking area, and it’s very limited.”

Krause added by the time 20 employees’ cars are parked at the Second Street building, little, if any, parking remains for clients.

“Our parking is so much better now,” she said. “We have bus access that drops them right at the front here. There’s still several people who can be served at the health department right in this area too. It’s a great area. We have lots of neighborhoods pretty close by, very walkable, lots of walking paths around here as well.”

Overall, Krause said the 15th Street building is a great location for the WIC program.

“We have better access with the buses and better parking,” she said. “That is a benefit to WIC. Numbers wise, I can’t tell you until we get further down the road past COVID-19 a little bit. One of the things which has helped, National Beef had bonuses, and it increased the wages enough so some of our clients fell off, but our numbers are only down 2 percent from normal.”

At this time, WIC clients are asked to call for an appointment at 620-626-3262. The WIC department is open 8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Thursday.