Evidence shows that public health programs led by the community are more likely to have sustainable, positive outcomes, yet navigating the complexities of engaging in truly community-led work can often lead to concessions in programming and defaulting to a top-down approach. CinnaMoms started as a support group with the goal of increasing breastfeeding rates among local Black/African/African American/Afro Latina WIC participants.

Support groups created a safe space where families could express their joys of pregnancies, breastfeeding journeys, also their difficult experiences with their health system, and ways they advocated for the care they deserved. This led community members to co-design a village for themselves and their families via CinnaMoms, a value-added brand and service with the PHFE WIC program that promotes empowerment, joy, and rest. In speaking the language of the community, CinnaMoms embraces the national strategies highlighted by the pillars presented at the White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health and the Maternal Health Blueprint.

Join Dr. Toncé Jackson, PHFE WIC Senior Health Equity Manager + cofounder of CinnaMoms, and Beth Cordova, PHFE WIC Dietetic Internship Director, as they celebrate positive outcomes and share how they navigate constraints of conducting and scaling community led programming. Come to hear about how the creation of CinnaMoms is an exemplar of community-led public health nutrition in practice. Leave with tangible ideas for how dietetic professionals can be allies in partnering with communities to address a public health nutrition gap and apply a strengths-based approach in the face of ongoing challenges.

Planned with the Public Health and Community Nutrition Dietetic Practice Group