The Houston Health Department (HHD) requests City Council’s approval of an ordinance authorizing the Director HHD to accept and expend grant funds from Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS) for the City’s Women, Infant and Children (WIC) Program. The period of performance for this grant is from October 1, 2015 through September 30, 2016 and may be extended to a period not to exceed five years. The initial funding amount is $11,428,240.00 and may be adjusted at any time during the performance period.
HHD also requests City Council to authorized the Mayor to execute all related contracts, agreements and documents with the approval of the City Attorney in connection with the grant and to authorize the Director or his designee to act as the City’s representative with the authority to apply for, accept and expend the grant funds, as awarded, and to apply for and accept and expend all subsequent awards, if any, pertaining to the grant.
Under this grant, HHD will administer the DSHS Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infant, and Children which provide supplemental food benefits, nutrition education, and counseling to enhance good health at no cost to low income pregnant and post partum women, infants and children identified to be at nutritional risk.
The funding will be used to continue special projects approved by DSHS which include breastfeeding peer counseling, nutrition education, obesity prevention, lactation services, clinical lactation practicum, dietetic internship, and other goods and services allowed by the grant.
This grant will allow HHD to serve approximately 74,000 WIC participants per month. Additionally, immunization screenings are provided to all WIC clients in 15 WIC sites.