The Program Monitoring Team at the state office is excited to announce that we are hosting monthly Program Monitoring Question & Answer (Q&A) sessions for local agencies. These sessions are held monthly on the fourth Thursday of every month, from 1-2 p.m., except November. If you have questions about this Q&A session or want to join the meeting, use this link to submit a question or email the program monitoring team directly at DohPchOnsProgramMonitoring@doh.wa.gov.
This opportunity is not mandatory. It is a time for you all to connect with the WIC Program Monitor team and ask questions about the monitoring process.
This learning opportunity was shared with all staff through Memo 2023-33.
- All WIC staff are encouraged to attend as their clinic schedule allows.
- Staff time is an allowable WIC cost under “Meetings, Networking, & Conferences.” The topics will provide technical information specific to completing the WIC monitor and continually meeting WIC deliverables.
- We will have one to two topics of common concerns to discuss at each meeting to guide the conversation.
- Meet your State Program Monitoring team and ask any questions you have about the monitor and validation process.
- Ask about your local agency self-evaluation requirements.
- Share and learn from other local agencies around Common Trends and concerns across the state.
Frequently Asked Questions
Updated July 2023
- Will the state office be looking for chart notes via screen share or after the observation?
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We will follow up within 48 hours for this information if you are not able to complete chart notes due to scheduling conflicts.
- What is the structure of the exit debrief meeting?
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These are informal 30-minute meetings. Please invite as many members of staff as possible. Review the Monitor Evaluation Tool and the Corrective Action Plan if there is one.
- When we send things in and didn't quite understand what was being asked, do you get back to us to with feedback on this?
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Yes. If it's an important topic, it will be discussed at the exit debrief meeting. Please reach out when you have questions and the Program Monitors are happy to help you.
- What is the state looking for in the monitor process in 2023?
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The process is relatively the same every year. Please see “What is the WIC monitoring process” section above.
- What information are you looking for in chart notes during the audit process?
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The Program monitor team is working on note templates and examples to share with you all, so stay tuned for that to be posted to our webpage.
Until then here is a general overview of what we look for in participant’s care plans.
We look that all nutrition education contacts have been made, including at minimum Initial/Sub Certification, Second Nutrition Education (2C), Mid-certification Health Assessment, and another Second Nutrition Education (2C). We also look for other required contacts based on category, such as Breastfeeding Reviews (BFR) with formula increases. We also look to be sure that notes are entered in the correct place in Cascades. At this time, all nutrition education should be under each individual’s care plan. The only thing that we expect to find in the family care plan would be the BFR.
Details of notes will vary based on the appointment type. Certification notes should include at minimum: Appointment type, information offered/shared/discussed, participant/caregiver thoughts and feelings about the information, participant goals, and plan for future support and follow up. Mid-certification and nutrition education notes should include at minimum: Appointment type, information offered/shared/discussed, caregiver thought and feelings about the information, updates to participant goals, and plan for future support and follow up.
We expect High Risk Care Plans to be by qualified Nutritionists and to include a more detailed nutrition assessment and care plan note around the high risk and plan for intervention.
**Best Practice is to follow SOAP or ADIME note format. Agencies that use these formats well will have this noted as an area of strength on their monitor report**
- Is filling out Eco-Social for PG required or best practice? (As the PNV question is in dietary and health assessment questions)
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In most In most cases you will most likely be putting not applicable, unless you have found that they are a recipient of abuse.
- Are we able to see/download the full Monitor Participant Evaluation Form?
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Yes, stay tuned for new tools in Jan 2024.
- Can you help me understand the required Local Agency Policies. Are there additional LA policies that are required besides those that are required when a monitor takes place? I have a list titled “Required Local Agency Policies, Approvals, or Permissions” and there are some policies listed but I know that each WIC agency may not require all.
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The local agency polices are required to always be in place to run WIC. The monitoring team just asks for them during your program monitoring to verify you are following state WIC policy. You should always have all the ones that apply to your local agency on hand and ready to go. Technically, any state WIC staff could ask to see them at any time, but we try to make the monitoring process as standardized and transparent as possible.
The monitor team uses the “Required Local Agency Policy, Approvals, or Permissions” list to come up with our document checklist for each monitor. Some of them are not on our list because we can find them internally at the state office.
One thing we highly recommend from the Program Monitoring lens that we’ve seen work for other agencies is to have all those policies on file in a shared location and plan to review annually (likely in January) and update as needed.
- Not everything on the table has detailed update/review requirements, but program monitoring does notice if they are super outdated or don’t make sense based on current WIC policies. FMNP policy is required to be updated annually.
- Ensuring the policies are in a shared location helps when you have staff turnover. We have seen instances in the past where the coordinator leaves and all the policies were on their desktop, so they are now lost. Making sure all staff can access and know where those live seems to help with this problem.
If you need help coming up with your local agency polices, please reach out to the monitoring team for ideas on what’s worked for other agencies. Your LPC should also be able to help get those policies, approvals, and permissions completed if you feel comfortable reaching out to them.