Public Health Sauk County WIC Program Given Breastfeeding Excellence Gold Award

Public Health Sauk County is pleased to announce that its WIC program was recently awarded the Breastfeeding Excellence Gold award by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).

According to the USDA, the award program seeks to recognize local WIC agencies that have provided exemplary breastfeeding promotion and support activities. The intent is to provide models and motivate other local agencies to strengthen their breastfeeding promotion and support activities and ultimately increase breastfeeding initiation and duration rates among WIC participants.

The award is given at three levels of performance that build on one another: Gold, Premiere, and Elite. This approach recognizes three groups of agencies that include those that are demonstrating model practices, as well as those who are at varying stages of implementing exemplary breastfeeding promotion and support practices.

“Public Health Sauk County’s WIC program is incredibly excited to have been awarded the Breastfeeding Excellence Gold Award,” says Joyce Smidl, Public Health Sauk County WIC Director. “We’ve made strides providing breastfeeding services through the work we do each and every day, as well as through our local breastfeeding coalition. The coalition is meeting quarterly via virtual meetings (with representatives from Public Health Sauk County and all 3 hospitals in Sauk County) and is currently working on creating an up-to-date Sauk County Breastfeeding Resource list. We plan to continue all the great work we’ve been doing to promote the health of families in Sauk County.”

For more information on the WIC program, visit https://www.fns.usda.gov/wic/