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PORTLAND, Maine

UNE's School of Social Work receives $480,000 HRSA Grant to train social workers for Maine's rural areas

University of New England's School of Social Work was recently approved for a $480,000 grant from the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA).  

The grant will provide full funding for a three-year period to develop the Rural Inter-Professional Clinical Expansion (RICE) Project whose object is to increase the number of clinical social workers who provide mental and behavioral health services in medically underserved areas for high need and high demand populations. 

Specifically, the grant money will be used to provide social work training to students in Maine's rural areas.

The RICE Project is a collaborative effort that works in partnership with health and human service organizations (HHSOs).  Its directors are Associate Professor Vernon Moore, M.S.S.W., Ed.D.,(lead); Director of Field Education Betsey Gray, M.S.W.; Clinical Associate Professor Nancy Ayer, M.S.W.;  Clinical Associate Professor Amy Coha, M.S.W., LCSW; and Associate Professor, Director of Online Education, and Co-director of the Social Work Center for Research and Evaluation Thomas Chalmers McLaughlin, Ph.D.

The project has four main goals, which will be accomplished during the three year funding cycle:  to increase the number of new students in UNE's School of Social Work who are committed to working within medically underserved communities; to increase and develop field placement sites in interdisciplinary and inter-professional HHSOs that provide mental and behavioral health services to high need and high demand populations in medically underserved communities; to enhance post-graduation employment and retention of stipend recipients in HHSOs that serve high need and high demand populations in medically underserved areas; and to create a self-sustaining institutional process for increasing the number of competent clinical social workers who are committed to working within medically underserved communities to provide mental and behavioral health services for high needs populations.

McLaughlin, the program director and evaluator for the RICE Project, notes, "The team of social work faculty members is excited about the prospects of working with our community partners to increase the number of clinical social work practitioners in the rural parts of Maine. With support from HRSA, we will provide up to 10 scholarships per year for students who make a commitment to engage in their field practicum and then work in high need areas of the state.  The School of Social Work has a long history of training graduate level social workers to practice in rural parts of the Maine, and this project will build on our past successes."

While high need and high demand populations (military personnel, veterans and their families, poor children, the elderly, and others who face economic barriers to health and health care) in Maine are the primary focus of the RICE Project, the outcomes of the project should be applicable to other such communities in the United States, especially in states with significant poor, rural and underserved populations like Maine.

University of New England School of Social Work faculty members who are involved in RICE will share the outcomes of the project at local, regional and national conferences; in professional publications; and with the New England Consortium of Field Educators.  Faculty also will offer to consult with other social work programs attempting to create similar recruitment, education and training programs.

HRSA is the primary federal agency for improving access to health care services for people who are uninsured, isolated, or medically vulnerable.  A large part of its mission is accomplished by awarding grants and cooperative agreements.

About the University of New England

The University of New England is Maine’s largest independent university, with two beautiful coastal campuses in Maine, a one-of-a-kind study abroad campus in Tangier, Morocco, and an array of flexible, accredited online degrees. In an uncommonly welcoming and supportive community, we offer hands-on learning, empowering students to make a positive impact in a world full of challenges. The state’s top provider of health professionals, we are home to Maine’s only medical college, Maine’s only dental college, a variety of other interprofessionally aligned health care degree programs, as well as nationally recognized programs for marine science degrees, natural and social sciences degrees, arts and humanities degrees, and business degrees.