Four eligibility technicians for the Mohave County Department of Public Health WIC (Women, Infants and Children) program received their WIC/VENA (Value Enhanced Nutrition Assessment) program certificates in January. Pictured are (from left) Bonnie Alvarez from the Bullhead City WIC office, Julie Zacarias from the Kingman office and Cindy Weatherby and Laurie Yates from the Lake Havasu City office. Photo courtesy Mohave County
KINGMAN – Four Mohave County Department of Public Health eligibility technicians received WIC/VENA (Women, Infants and Children/Value Enhanced Nutrition Assessment) program certificates in January.
Bonnie Alvarez from the Bullhead City WIC office, Julie Zacarias from the Kingman office and Cindy Weatherby and Laurie Yates from the Lake Havasu City office were presented certificates, which are new state requirements.
Community Nutrition Specialist Brenda LoBue is supervisor for the WIC offices. LoBue reports to Nutrition and Health Promotions Manager Deborah Conter.
Aptly named, “WIC is a nutrition program for income-eligible women, infants and children,” LoBue said. “The children are under the age of five. We provide nutrition counseling and healthy food for those who qualify. Although the program is for income eligible clients, we have a pretty high ceiling on income levels.”
LoBue said the program provides personalized “consultations with our clients to help them establish goals for healthy living. When a client comes in new, we schedule an appointment. We assess how they are doing nutritionally. We get a background of health history information; get height and weight; test iron and hemoglobin levels; and enter all of our information into a system to assess nutritional risks. We talk to our clients about establishing goals and making their lives healthier. We offer breastfeeding information and talk to women about prenatal nutrition.
“A lot of our clients are concerned with childhood nutrition,” she said. “They want to know about breastfeeding, baby formulas and about starting babies on solid food.”
LoBue said the Mohave County WIC staff presently has 12 employees.
“Our employees have to meet certain guidelines in order to counsel clients,” she said. “The girls who have graduated have already taken the eight college classes they needed to achieve certificates.”
The classes were offered out of Central Arizona College, she said. Some were on the Internet and some were “face to face.
“I am very pleased with our staff,” LoBue said. “They have worked very hard to achieve the certificates. All staff will have completed the college courses by October of 2011.”
She said most Mohave County WIC staff members have “been with us between five and 10 years and are very experienced.”
For more information on WIC, call the WIC office in Kingman at (928) 753-0794; the office in Bullhead City at (928) 758-0722, and the office in Lake Havasu City at (928) 453-0716.
