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SSW researchers finalists for University Creativity Hubs Pilot Award

A team of UNC researchers has been awarded funding for a pilot project that could help to support the long-term success of a state initiative launched to improve the way Medicaid-insured children receive care and support services in North Carolina.

UNC School of Social work researchers Paul Lanier, Emily Putnam-Hornstein and Lisa de Saxe Zerden, along with colleagues from the schools of medicine, public health, and the Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services, were selected to receive $5,000 in seed funding as part of the University’s Creativity Hubs Pilot Award program. The campus program, supported by the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research, promotes the development of innovative ideas that emerge from cross-disciplinary interactions to solve difficult and challenging problems.

The research team was awarded for their proposal to develop a hub of experts that would study the state’s new NC Integrated Care for Kids model. This proposed science hub would work to ensure the state initiative is successful in its goals to holistically understand the needs of children and youth and that youth and their families receive the services and support they need to thrive.

The UNC colleagues, who are among the campus finalists chosen in the first round of funding, will spend the next few months developing a larger proposal with hopes of receiving an additional $500,000 from the University research award program next year. Lanier, an associate professor, and Samantha Schilling, an assistant professor, general pediatrics and adolescent medicine, are co-principal investigators on the project.