by Celia Meredith

The SNAP Outreach team here at PHFO is excited to announce a new addition to our training toolbox! We travel around the state providing training on SNAP and SNAP Outreach to community partners and providers, covering SNAP outreach best practices, application basics and resources available in different communities. These trainings are open to any organizations or people who are conducting or hoping to begin outreach to help clients connect to SNAP. This past year, we visited Ontario, Pendleton, Bend and Corvallis to conduct in-person trainings—all in the month of September!

We’re thrilled to add this online component to our trainings because we hope it will offer additional possibilities for community partners to learn about SNAP anytime and anywhere. Our hope is to share the basics of SNAP with anyone looking to learn more to help make the program accessible and effective in our communities.

After about 45 minutes of training, you’ll walk away ready to make a change in your community.

This online training is similar to a recorded webinar and is split up into four sections. Each section, or “module” contains brief before and after quizzes so participants can track how much they learn. The four sections are as follows:

• The Importance of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program:  Covers information about food insecurity in Oregon and the impact SNAP has as an anti-hunger and anti-poverty tool;
• The Basics of SNAP: Introduces history of the program, talks about basic eligibility determinations and how one can apply;
• Using SNAP: Introduces the EBT/Oregon Trail Card, and how/where the card can be used; and
• SNAP Outreach: Covers some of the best outreach practices that help those in need find the program.

We would love for anyone who uses this online training tool to give us feedback. We want to continue to improve this training—in format and in content. We hope to be able to add sections on important and relevant topics for your communities.

Dive in today, or share this resource so we can continue to increase knowledge and awareness about SNAP throughout Oregon!

Find the online training here.

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