Description
While more than 6 million women, infants, and children participate in the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) in the United States, roughly 43 percent of eligible individuals do not. Recent studies suggest that increasing WIC enrollment through state-level referral data matching and outreach efforts may be one avenue for increasing WIC participation. The goal of this request for applications (RFA) is to facilitate data sharing activities that support targeted outreach and streamlined certification processes aimed at increasing the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) participation and retention. Therefore, this RFA will provide up to $10,000,000 (with the possibility of additional funds) in American Rescue Plan Act funding (Section 1106 of Subtitle B, Title I of ARP), through a one-time cooperative agreement, to an external entity that will provide financial, technical, and evaluation support to WIC State agencies to implement referral data matching, with participant consent when required, and outreach efforts. To meet this goal, the successful applicant will complete the following activities: 1) Conduct a minimum of two competitive subgrant award programs (in phases), making funds available to multiple WIC State agencies to implement referral data matching and outreach efforts; 2) Provide pre-application technical assistance for WIC State agencies wishing to apply for subgrants and post-award technical assistance and guidance to subgrantees for the duration of all subgrant projects, and collaborate with the FNS team working on WIC modernization and innovation efforts for additional support; and 3) Develop and apply an implementation and evaluation framework to assess to process, short-term, and intermediate-term outcomes of the overall project, including quantifying changes in WIC enrollment and participation rates among individuals enrolled in Medicaid and SNAP.