Motherhood, Poverty, and the WIC Program in Urban America by Suzanne Morrissey

Author:Suzanne Morrissey
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: LEXINGTON BOOKS

PINTO beans

BLACK beans

GREAT NORTHERN beans

BLACK-EYE peas

DARK RED KIDNEY beans

LARGE LIMA beans

LIGHT RED KIDNEY beans

BABY LIMA beans

SMALL RED beans

PINK beans

Source: Research site observation item permitted for use under NYDOH IRB.

Behind the Scenes: What Goes On in the Program Offices

I was introduced to work in the WIC agency offices by being given desk space alongside the WIC assistants, where I could help with client reminder calls, write up my fieldnotes, prepare my research activities, and observe office activities. As mentioned previously, the Program offices were in the same stark, concrete building as the clinic. There were only a few windows within the office space and even these were along a back wall that overlooked a parking lot and were blocked from plain view by office cubicles. Aside from personal touches (e.g., family photos and miscellaneous knick knacks) on employee desks, the office area was nothing more than a large, bland, and non-descript room cut up by partitions. Art work, pictures, and posters were conspicuously absent; instead, the walls were lined with metal filing cabinets.

Through the main door into the offices (two other doors linked the offices directly to the clinic, but were never accessed by clients), there was a reception desk where administrative staff sat to answer phones and occasionally schedule appointments in person with clients. A solid wooden door opened up to the main office space where there was a conference room immediately to the right and a private (i.e., there is a door that can be shut) office space to the left where two nutritionists worked. Directly in front were three pairs of desk-cubicles, where WIC assistants work when they are not in the clinic, doing things such as making appointment reminder calls to clients, verifying Program Reconciliation Reports,6 and sorting through files being prepared for closure. The Director of Nutrition has a private office to the left, and the Program Director has an office to the right. The Director’s secretary sits at a desk outside that office. Another door to the right of the secretary’s desk led to more desk-cubicles, where one staff member assigned to vendor surveillance and all the other nutritionists worked. From here, nutritionists work on outreach activities, Nutrition Spotlight posters, client referrals, and breastfeeding counselor training projects.

From within these office spaces I was able to partake in office banter, overhear pieces of conversations workers had with clients on the phone (and, likewise, their comments about clients once they hung up), get a sense of relations between staff members, witness problems that arose and how they were addressed, watch where responsibilities fell, and, generally, learn the ins and outs of program administration.

Upon entering the offices it is obvious that much of the program administrative work takes place on the phone with WIC assistants making appointments reminder calls and administrative staff answering client calls while other staff members pull and sort case files. Of highest priority in the offices, I was told, was making reminder calls—calling participants a day in advance of their appointments to remind them to come to the clinic—or calling those who have missed appointments to reschedule.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.