California has five SNAP-Ed State Implementing Agencies (SIAs), each of which has its own Local Implementing Agencies (LIAs) for reaching the SNAP-Ed population with education and obesity prevention interventions. The California Department of Social Services (CDSS) serves an oversight function and funds 6 county welfare departments. The California Department of Public Health (CDPH) funds 59 local health departments. The California Department of Aging has 19 area agencies on aging. UC CalFresh administers SNAP-Ed through UC Cooperative Extension in 31 counties. Catholic Charities of California has 11 local agencies across 24 counties.
At the county-level, the LIAs jointly develop a single SNAP-Ed integrated work plan. Four of the SIAs use the same Food Behavior Checklist to evaluate behavior change among SNAP-Ed adult participants in series classes. In federal fiscal year (FFY) 2015, these four SIAs found statistically significant improvement in healthy eating behaviors in indicator MT1c (Ate more than one kind of fruit) and MT1d (Ate more than one kind of vegetable) across more than 3,000 matched participant surveys.
The five SIAs have developed common SNAP-Ed goals and objectives for FFY 2017–2019 and are currently working on a joint evaluation plan. The SNAP-Ed Evaluation Framework will be useful for identifying shared metrics that can tell a more unified story across the California SNAP-Ed SIAs.