Policy & Practice | Winter 2023

Their team used the data to create a Food Insecurity Map of Michigan 2 that collates publicly available data on poverty and food insecurity along side the availability of community resources and state food assistance program data. The goal of this map is to inform state priorities for reducing hunger and addressing disparities in food access for communities that are underserved by displaying gaps in SNAP enrollment by location to reveal where counties with high poverty rates lacked adequate emergency food dis tribution services. The Food Insecurity Map unveiled critical gaps across Michigan communities. Further com munity engagement will be needed in the future to understand the under lying root causes of these gaps. Hawai‘i , New Jersey , and New Mexico took strides to establish data-sharing systems, connecting SNAP and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC). These data linkages were built to ensure that families enrolled in one program could be promptly alerted about their eligibility for other programs based on the information they already provided. These endeavors boosted enrollment and simplified access to SNAP and WIC by informing families about services available to them. Engaging People with Lived Expertise to Lead Community Navigation Community outreach and enroll ment played a pivotal role in several CSNS cohort 1 sites. Two sites in cohort 1 tested the introduction of community navigator roles to build bridges between community members, community-based organizations, and government agencies. Navigators themselves are community members who have had recent or current expe rience as human services program participants. This is one strategy to create a systematic, closed feedback loop and invite community to mean ingfully and authentically engage

focused on identifying and mitigating barriers faced by specific communities by building data-informed cross program alignment strategies to target disparities in food access, and engaging individuals with lived expertise navigating nutrition programs to build connections across community-based organizations, government agencies, and community members. The American Public Human Services Association (APHSA) and Share Our Strength supported sites in embedding their equity work into technology and data-heavy initiatives by providing tools and technical assis tance to integrate equity throughout each project phase. The following examples demonstrate how equity can be interwoven with technology and data-focused projects to advance a holistic community-centric nutrition access model. Embedding Equity in Cross-Program Sharing and analyzing data was a core component of site teams’ cross program alignment strategies. Human services agencies have access to sub stantial volumes of data, yet often lack the resources and capacity for in-depth analysis to determine how to adapt their services based on the insights provided by that data. The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS) leveraged the CSNS opportunity to collaborate with the University of Michigan’s Poverty Solutions Center to collect and analyze data to gain a deeper understanding of gaps in access, enrollment, and services compared to population demographics. Alignment Strategies Michigan embarked on data collection and analysis, including demographic data, to gain deeper insights into food access experiences and gaps, informing their future priorities to address these gaps. Michigan , Mecklenburg , and Kansas also collaborated with community organizations as an integral part of their projects, fostering co-creation and co-ownership of project components.

The request for proposals for the first CSNS cohort (Kansas; Michigan; Mecklenburg County, NC; New Mexico; Hawai’i; and New Jersey) 1 underscored the disproportionate impact of hunger on communities of color—particularly Black, Indigenous, and Latinx com munities—and encouraged applicants to prioritize strategies that work toward more racially equitable nutri tion support programs. Through their initiatives, project teams at each site concentrated on harnessing data and technology to expand access to nutri tion benefits, dismantling inter- and intra-agency silos, fostering partner ships with community organizations, and engaging the lived expertise of families accessing nutrition support programs administered by government and community organizations. Some projects aimed to streamline access to nutrition supports broadly, while others

Chloe Eberhardt is the Senior Program Manager for Share Our Strength Center for Best Practices.

Morgan McKinney is a Project Associate for the Process Innovation team at APHSA.

Jess Maneely is the Assistant Director of Process Innovation at APHSA.

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Policy & Practice Winter 2023