The Johnson County WIC office is located in Franklin at 600 Ironwood Dr, Suite I.
Elissa Maudlin | Daily Journal
A resource for women, infants and children will soon be coming to Greenwood.
Johnson County WIC, a supplemental nutrition program for women, infants and children, is helping establish a Greenwood location. Greenwood would be the second clinic currently in the county, according to the Indiana Department of Health WIC map.
The organization believes the expansion will help serve more families in the county, help relieve southside Marion County WIC clinics and reduce travel distance for clients living in Greenwood.
According to a Johnson County WIC brochure, 38% of enrollees the clinic currently sees have a Greenwood zip code. Johnson County WIC’s current participation caseload averages 3,000 each month in the county. The Greenwood clinic will also help people who come from southern Marion County, said Tracy Smith, WIC coordinator.
“56% of our population (including southern Marion County participants are) coming from half hour, 45 minutes away,” Smith said. “So we identified the need to open up a location there to help relieve some of that transportation barrier.”
Before Smith came on 26 years ago, she said there was a Greenwood site with a much smaller caseload that eventually closed. Johnson County WIC has been at its Franklin location since 2003 and has expanded twice.
According to the USDA, the WIC program is available in all 50 states, 33 Indian Tribal Organizations, American Samoa, the District of Columbia, Guam, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. WIC was formally authorized in 1972 through an amendment to the Child Nutrition Act of 1966.
Indiana WIC serves an average of 145,000 women, infants and children each month through a statewide network of 140 WIC clinics, according to the Indiana Department of Health.
“So that kind of tells you the need of supplemental foods, nutrition and making sure you help (families) put food on the table where otherwise they may have not had as much availability with food insecurity as well,” Smith said.
WIC provides nutrition counseling and education materials, height/weight assessments and anemia testing, healthy foods, breastfeeding support and referrals to local resources for those who qualify. Pregnant women, breastfeeding women up to 12 months after delivery, non-breastfeeding women up to six months after delivery and infants and children up to 5 years old are eligible for WIC.
Smith said WIC provides a food package based on nutrient-dense foods that are loaded onto a debit card that can be used in stores and for specific purchases. People in the program also meet with registered dietitians and nurses at least every three months for a nutrition consult.
Families already receiving Medicaid, food stamps and TANF are income-eligible for WIC, and household income can also be used to determine eligibility, according to the organization. WIC only considers the last 30 days of household income for eligibility.
Smith said she is most excited about helping families with the new Greenwood WIC location.
“(I am most excited about) providing more services to our families, serving more of our Johnson County residents that may not have had the opportunity to travel the distance down here,” she said.
The state will provide funding for new staff at the Greenwood clinic, and Smith said she is hoping to achieve the same home-like feel for the new clinic that the Johnson County WIC clinic has.
Smith said they will be hiring registered dietitians, registered nurses, lactation consultants and front office staff.
“You have a family here (at the Johnson County WIC clinic), so you don’t want to break up a good team that’s working together. So we’re hoping to start a new all-star team up there (in Greenwood) as well,” Smith said. “Of course, we’ll have staff meetings together and things to make sure the flow, the management and … the style’s the same.”
Currently, there is not a set location or opening date for the new clinic, Smith said. A location will ideally be pinned down this fall.
