Policy & Practice | Winter 2023

l Administers SNAP benefits to community l Leads CSNS initiative from beginning to end

l Engages community regularly as sa trusted source l Links community to government- and locally administered nutrition supports

SNAP Agency

Community Organizations

l Trained and employed by SNAP Agency and CBO to engage community l Engage community to glean feedback and close communication loops

l Informed about nutrition assistance programs by Community Navigators l Provide feedback to agency and CBO on real-time community needs

Community Navigators

Community

flexibility in working outside of regular government hours. The Food Security Navigator team participated in community events, disseminating information about food resources through a food education referral form and conducting surveys to capture community needs and input. Over the course of their enrollment campaign, Mecklenburg navigators: n attended 370 events n engaged in24,413 interactions with community members n received 5,382 completed commu nity feedback surveys n made 529 referrals to food resources n saw 16,151 new individual enroll ments in SNAP A key strength of the CSNS program is its cohort model, which facilitates regular collaboration among project sites, enabling them to exchange ideas and learn from others’ experiences. This collaboration was particularly helpful for peer exchange on how to infuse equity into tech-centric projects. Kansas, for instance, drew inspiration from Mecklenburg’s work and sought to introduce a community navigator into their project to focus on Geary County, a high-priority area for the state. Mecklenburg and Kansas engaged individuals with lived expertise with food insecurity, poverty, and public benefits to inform the human-centered design of food security programs.

with government on their own terms, within their own spaces. Mecklenburg and Kansas project teams deepened partnerships with trusted community-based organiza tions to hire community navigators who brought their lived experience navigating public benefits systems to the project to connect community with government-administered nutri tion supports. The navigators offered comprehensive referrals to food resources, assistance with public benefit enrollment, and actively listened to com munity-identified needs and solutions to inform government agencies of real-time community needs (see chart, above). The Mecklenburg County Department of Social Services (DSS) initiated a Food Security Navigator team dedicated to community outreach that solicited feedback from the community about their needs. Their efforts prioritized communities with the highest levels of need—as shown both in public poverty and hunger data as well as through analysis of cross-program enrollment data that revealed significant participa tion gaps—including neighborhoods in Charlotte with a high concentration of families with low incomes. To bring the Food Security Navigator team on board, Mecklenburg collabo rated with Loaves & Fishes/Friendship Trays, a trusted community food distri bution organization. This partnership allowed the county to prioritize lived expertise and language accessibility in hiring, establishing a navigator team with bilingual capabilities and

Kansas Department of Children and Families (DCF), in partnership with the Kansas Department of Health and Environment (DOH), established a data lake to match enrollment between SNAP and WIC and launched a targeted outreach campaign to reach eligible but unenrolled participants from each program. The addition of a Family Benefits Navigator with lived expertise participating in public benefits provided real-time feedback on benefits navigation and enhanced community outreach. Similar to Mecklenburg’s approach, Kansas DCF collaborated with a community-based organization, Delivering Change, to hire and house the Family Benefits Navigator position. Again, this partnership enabled flexibility in the hiring process to prioritize lived expertise, which was deemed crucial for this role to build trust with families based on a shared understanding of the challenges associated with navigating public benefit systems. The Family Benefits Navigator attended com munity events and provided SNAP and WIC referral and enrollment assistance. From August to December 2022, Kansas’ navigator: n informed 143 individuals about SNAP n assisted 66 people with the SNAP application n secured benefits for 25 applicants

See Nutrition Access on page 39

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Winter 2023 Policy & Practice