2018 Hunger and Health Summit

Medicaid provides medical coverage to nearly 70 million Americans. In Wisconsin, the Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) covers over 1 million of our friends and neighbors. With the tough choices that many Wisconsin families face every day, Medicaid helps provide access to the healthcare they need to work toward a better future. Yet, there are very real threats to how Medicaid operates and coordinates with programs for low-income families making the program’s present uncertain and unclear. At the same time, there are also very real opportunities for how Medicaid could operate that would help to increase funding, measurement and drive improvements in addressing social determinants of health. Join this session to learn what the present and future of Medicaid holds from two state and national leaders.

This workshop will discuss innovative & effective programs that help people overcome poverty and increase economic security by removing major barriers to employment. Featured Community Action Agencies include: the Fatherhood Initiative, helping formerly incarcerated and unemployed fathers get training & jobs to support their children; JBD, assisting low-income entrepreneurs to start or expand small businesses; Skills Enhancement, providing low-wage workers with technical college training to get better paying jobs; Work-N-Wheels, which helps low-income workers with transportation challenges to buy reliable vehicles. This session will also feature Groundwork Milwaukee, a nonprofit with a unique approach to addressing root causes of poverty through its eight programs and mission.

There are those who say that we lost the War on Poverty. It’s not true; we didn’t lose the War on Poverty, we stopped fighting it by pulling back on programs proven to reduce poverty and not fully investing in innovative programs that would end poverty once and for all. Join this session to learn about the work being done in our state to develop evidence-based, proven solutions to end poverty in Wisconsin and the country.

Children are among the most vulnerable people in Wisconsin – 1 in 6 of them live in poverty. Racial disparities in child poverty rates mean that children of color face an even steeper climb for equity. End Child Poverty Wisconsin is a campaign led by the Wisconsin Council of Churches, WISDOM, Citizen Action of Wisconsin, and Kids Forward. The campaign seeks 10,000 signatures to bring public pressure on our elected leaders to adopt the goal to cut child poverty and racial disparities in half in the next 10 years.

With evidence-based policies with support across political and economic divides, children and their families can become healthy and hunger-free. Get an update on next steps for building statewide support for the goal, and learn about new resources and ways you and your organization can become a part of this effort to achieve a better future for all of Wisconsin’s children.

There is a growing interest around Wisconsin in nutrition incentive programming – the practice of offering additional money at farmers' markets, CSA’s, or grocery retailers to people who receive FoodShare or WIC benefits to make healthy purchases. Several organizations around the state are currently offering this type of programming, and many more are interested in getting started. With some nutrition incentive partners starting to convene around a USDA grant application, the time is right to start building a network of stakeholders to create conversations around best practices & mentorship, evaluation & communication practices, future planning for resilience and sustainability, and more. In this session, participants will have an interactive conversation around visioning a statewide nutrition incentive network. As a starting point, we will focus around the following questions: what are the goals of a statewide nutrition incentive network? Who should be involved in building this network, and how can we create strong and innovative partnerships to move this work forward? How can we structure this network to build capacity and create impact?