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COMMUNITY CO-CREATION

Cooking Matters was awarded a foundation grant in 2019 to work with local WIC offices to modify the Cooking Matters at the Store curriculum and engage with community navigators to deliver an in-store educational opportunity for WIC recipients from refugee communities in order to support the increased redemption of WIC benefits. However, as a result of COVID, the project faced many delays and ultimately transformed with partner and community input (and funder approval!) in order to meet the changing needs and current environment. Local WIC clinic staff contributed to the project design and informed content, while also providing connections to trusted community members to serve as community navigators. The result was 5 co-created educational videos produced in Somali and Arabic that support refugee families to understand and use their WIC benefits. With support of SNAP-Ed we evaluated the effectiveness of the videos for the intended audience.

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	KEY INFORMANT INTERVIEWS: Inform research methodology ROUND 1: Gather needs and co-create video prototypes ROUND 2: Test and refine prototypes
VIDEO EVALUATION Summer 2022	ROUND 3: Test final video impact with new participants

STUDY METHODOLOGY

VIDEO

CO-CREATION

2021

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Our team worked closely with Cooking Matters to design a community based research approach to involve the community of recent arrivals and the groups that serve them in a solution that would help increase the redemption of WIC allowable foods. An important part of the approach was starting with the WIC teams and refugee organizations to get a foundational understanding around WIC redemption issues, understand what research methodologies would work with the community and gain access to trusted navigators that could reach the community.

From our past work with Cooking Matters, we understood that co-creating required tapping into trusted community navigators, iteration and having a working prototype to test and refine with input from the community. The research started with key informant interviews which uncovered key barriers to reaching recent arrivals usually (unwillingness to be recorded or video taped, husband’s permission to participate at all, house visit requirement for many) and added difficulty due to COVID (reduced office visits).

The Spell out IRC provided connection to trusted community navigators that were already active and trusted. The navigators were critical in helping us reach and conduct the research with 50 respondents. A close partnership with navigators was important to help troubleshoot issues, increase engagement and also gather feedback orally to make sure we gathered the richness of the stories.

We used the data gathered from the navigators to inform video prototypes then we tested and refined the videos with the same group of participants. After the second round of testing, we went out to a new group of 50 respondents to evaluate whether the videos helped increase usage and understanding.

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KEY LEARNINGS

Community-informed focus areas:

How to identify, use and store WIC-allowable foods
Nutritional benefits WIC foods
Shopping in a US supermarket, including understanding US packaging

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KEY LEARNINGS

Engage with navigators to create culturally relevant content

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KEY LEARNINGS

The majority of respondents said the videos improved their understanding or usage of their WIC benefits

Q: Did the __Video improve your understanding of and/or usage of your WIC Food Benefits? n=50

% of respondents who felt the videos improved understanding or usage	Somali	Arabic
Overall Video	61%	88%
WIC Shopper App	88%	100%
Milk	77%	85%
Whole Grain	65%	73%
Peanut Butter	56%	88%

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WATCH ALL THE VIDEOS

https://youtu.be/fOLh9jmeglM

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CONTACT INFO

Christina Miller

Senior Manager

cmmiller@strength.org

Julie Diaz-Asper

Founding Partner

julieda@sociallensresearch.com

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