Social Welfare Assistant Professor wants research to help children with mental illness

Whitney Grube is focused on helping the most vulnerable. That’s a passion she’s had since she was an undergraduate student studying behavioral science at the University of Kansas School of Social Welfare.

Grube, an assistant professor in her second year as faculty, spent the better part of 10 years as a research associate working on various projects involving children and families.

Her current research is specifically on community mental health and children and adolescents experiencing serious emotional disturbances.

“In Kansas, we have what's called a serious emotional disturbance waiver,” Grube said. “It's to basically get kids access to specialty mental health services through our community mental health system.”

For Grube, who received her Master of Social Work and PhD at KU, the severity of mental illness these children face is a major concern. In some cases, Grube said the mental illness is so severe that they’re at risk of being placed in acute hospitalization.

“That’s the population I’m most interested in,” Grube said, “Simply because they are the most vulnerable.”

Grube wants to evaluate the specialty mental health services that exist because there isn’t much evidence-based care. Grube hopes her work will provide more research into special services to see if they help prevent out-of-home placement.  

Through her dissertation work, Grube examined this population and found some racial disparities in who is able to access the emotional disturbance waivers. This included an over-representation of Black children on the waiver, which Grube said is discrepant compared to what general research would say.

“Most of the time people of color don’t access mental health services at the same rate,” Grube said. “But here in Kansas, there is this over-representation and so I’d like to dig a little bit more into that and see how kids are getting to this waiver.”

Grube doesn’t want her research to stop with the children on waivers. She also wants to research the health needs of the caregivers of these children, and the stress induced from having a child who experiences significant mental health concerns.

Grube understands what kind of change her research could make on a human level. Her first job out of college was at a community mental health center, doing case management with children. That’s what initially sparked her interest in the emotional disturbance waiver. It was a learning experience, but Grube wanted to find a more effective way to make a difference.

The next step for Grube is to have conversations and find strategic ways to partner with people doing research, to use findings to better equip the mental health system to help children and adolescents.

What would success look like with this research?

“The kids feel like they can function in their home community or school,” Grube said. “At the caregiver level, progress is when they feel equipped to handle their children. If there is something that comes up, they have the skills needed to respond appropriately or provide the support that they need to for their child.”