lab PANDA​

In lab PANDA, we conduct our own projects and collaborate with various research labs and community-led agencies to achieve our goals of learning how to identify effective ways to help children with trauma histories. Below are a few of our initiatives:

Projects

Telehealth ROCKS
We work with Dr. Eve-Lynn Nelson at the University of Kansas Department of Pediatrics to use telemental health strategies to scale up rural providers in evidence-based practices. We do this primarily through providing and evaluating "ECHO" series (extension for healthcare outcomes). 

Project Share - Joplin
Project Share began as Dr. Hambrick's dissertation research. The focus is on identifying adaptive ways for caregivers to talk to children about disasters. We are collaborating with researchers at the University of Kansas (Dr. Eric Vernberg) and the University of Missouri to extend this study to additional populations, and continue to analyze our own data.

Kansas City Refugee Project
This project is a collaboration between lab PANDA and Dr. Eric Vernberg's lab at the University of Kansas (KU). Jessy Guler, a doctoral candidate at KU, is the PI of this focus-group and interview based project. We are conducting focus groups with local providers who serve KC-area refugees, and interviews with refugee families. The goal is to learn about the strengths of refugee families and the challenges they face in the US, as well as to learn about family functioning once resettled to the US and how family functioning is associated with wellbeing. 

Fostering Healthy Futures
 We collaborate with Dr. Heather Taussig's research team at the University of Denver, which studies the efficacy and effectiveness of mentoring-based preventive interventions for children and adolescents involved with child welfare. 

The Children's Place
The Children’s Place is located in Kansas City, Missouri and offers a therapeutic preschool program and outpatient therapy center to the youngest children in the community. Our partnership began in 2018 with the goal of providing on-site program evaluation. We collect and analyze assessment data that aids in treatment planning as well as in evaluating program efficiency and effectiveness. Our key collaborator is CEO Ann Thomas LCSW, RPT/S. We work together to further their mission of being a place where children and families heal from life’s deepest hurts.

Synergy Services 
We partner with Synergy Services in Kansas City, Missouri to research the effectiveness of 30-day crisis shelters, and ways to improve the effectiveness of child-focused crisis shelters. Sara Brammer, PhD and Dennis Meier, PhD are our primary collaborators. 

FamilyForward (Previously Children's Home Society of Missouri)
This project will explore the effectiveness of the Neurosequential Model of Therapeutics in a therapeutic preschool and an outpatient clinic primarily serving families with adoptive children.  Our key collaborator is CPO Sharon Skidmore-Stearn, MSW, LCSW.  We hope to identify mediators and moderators of change during the treatment process, including relational health, self-regulatory capacities, parenting self-efficacy, and cognitive control.