Building Public-Private Collaboration to Increase Breastfeeding Success

Statewide Breastfeeding Workgroup (BFWG) 

For many overwhelmed parents and babies struggling with breastfeeding challenges, local WIC nutrition staff are the frontline (and too often the only lifeline) in helping them toward a successful feeding relationship. With parental anxiety about infant feeding heightened by recent formula recalls and shortages and significant gaps in insurance coverage for lactation care, families rely more than ever on the fourteen statewide clinics offering the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC).

While WIC staff play a critical role supporting new families in our communities, the steady needs of families can stretch staff and administration thin and offer too little opportunity for reflection, growth and learning. Hawaiʻi Department of Health (DOH) support for a 2025 collaboration between WIC, ECAS, and community partners brought a much needed opportunity to increase breastfeeding and first foods training, tools, resources, and the web of community support available to WIC families and staff. 

This unique collaboration received community guidance and hands-on support from the Statewide Breastfeeding Workgroup (BFWG). The work launched with consultation meetings with DOH Family Health Services Division (FHSD) and WIC leadership to identify strategies and opportunities to advance breastfeeding equity across the islands. Key staff from WIC and ECAS met steadily throughout the year to identify essential resources and partnerships that will close gaps in the statewide breastfeeding safety net for WIC families. 

To address breastfeeding support needs identified by WIC staff, our initiative deepened collaboration with historic partners like Breastfeeding Hawaiʻi, offering their expertise to address WICʻs request for an up-to-date statewide breastfeeding resource directory and trusted repository for educational resources. At the same time, we forged new relationships with key partners such as the FARMWISE Initiative to strengthen WICʻs capacity to promote breastmilk feeding and healthy local foods for the many families who rely on childcare feeding programs such as the Hawaiʻi Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP). 

A highlight of the year of insightful collaboration was the WIC biennial conference in August, bringing together statewide WIC staff for a half day of hands-on breastfeeding skills training with lactation experts from local communities. Nearly 100 WIC staff moved enthusiastically among six training stations and went home with an abundance of resources, including a carefully designed WIC Breastfeeding Toolkit to pilot with families back in their local clinics. 

An emerging partnership with the Native Hawaiian Healthcare Systems helped to assure that in-person breastfeeding training for WIC staff was rooted in cultural wellness and the strong tradition of hānai waiū in the Hawaiian Islands. 

Sarah Gregory, MHS, RD, WIC Public Health Nutritionist, shared that WIC staff especially liked:

“being able to work with all those breastfeeding experts to provide training stations, it was very successful and there was a lot of positive feedback. Because it was so well received by the majority of our staff, that warrants it being a routine part of our conference, and encourages us in having a breastfeeding component and hands-on training every conference.”

Based on feedback received, collaborative breastfeeding training efforts at the WIC conference succeeded in both educating and reenergizing staff! Careful planning allowed for bringing multiple partners together with those working in the field together, to celebrate, learn, and rediscover the joy that brought them to their professions.