Essay on Child Welfare, Poverty Eradication Program

Poverty being one of the biggest problems facing the world has received a lot of international attention. It has been the primary focus of many governments that wish to control the vicious cycle that limits economies and renders many people disadvantaged in life. In the United States, many agencies run programs aimed at suppressing the effect of poverty. These organizations are dedicated to assisting individuals who are unable to acquire various resources and opportunities due to low-income levels. They are located in many countries all over the world with some of the biggest situated in the United States.

The state of Florida is involved in a program for Women, Infants, and Children also known as WIC that assists poor, expectant ladies, and small kids of up to half a decade old. According to Kotch (2013), WICs mission is to collaborate with other amenities which are crucial to childhood and family welfare. The WIC program has three main aims; to research the state of children vaccination rates and to conduct minimum immunization screening and recommendation procedures. They also partake in the application of other measures to grow immunization levels of WIC children.

The requirements for eligibility to acquire assistance from the agency is a family income level under the stipulated federal poverty level of the country. In most states in the country, including Florida, there is an allowance for automatic eligibility where an individual or family is on a particular benefits program. There are four areas for applicants to meet before they are considered eligible for the program. They have to be residents of the state of the application, be at nutritional risk, have a low-income level based on federal income rates and be children or women of a particular age or pregnancy situation as stipulated by the agency.

WIC was founded by an amendment of a section of the Child Nutrition Act of 1966 and was initially limited to children of up to 4 years old and did not include non-breastfeeding women. After a few years, the program was made permanent in the country to serve only women and children deemed to be at nutritional risk, (Kotch, 2013). Over the years, the agency has received more funding and support from the government to continue its work all over the country. It is now available in most of the states and serves over seven million mothers and children who are at nutritional risk each month, (Food and Nutrition Service, 2017). According to Kotch (2013), in the year 2000, the white house through an executive memorandum, gave the agency authority to commence the screening of clients for childhood vaccination. The action was driven by the fact that WIC had access to the largest number of low-income children and therefore, had the most potential for assisting with the vaccination efforts.

In Florida, the agencys program has reached and benefited many mothers and children. It has enabled disadvantaged families at nutritional risk the access to resources that would have been unaffordable to them and therefore, provided them with a better quality of life. The community served by the agency in Florida has been able to prevent many diseases through its immunization outreach program. The program has developed the community by ensuring that health is a priority and that children and mothers with no access to nutrition and health facilities acquire assistance. It has also provided valuable health and nutrition education which has made many families more aware and cautioned about their diets and nutrition.

References

Kotch, J. (2013). Maternal and child health: Programs, problems, and policy in public health. Sudbury, Mass: Jones & Bartlett Learning.

Frequently Asked Questions about WIC | Food and Nutrition Service. (2017). Retrieved from https://www.fns.usda.gov/wic/frequently-asked-questions-about-wic