Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation for Childhood Cancer

www.news-line.com
1/20/2012

Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation (ALSF), a leading driver of research for pediatric cancer, has announced the recipients of the 2011 Nurse Researcher Grants designed to improve the quality of care and life for young cancer patients and their families. The grants, which will extend to nurse researchers in three states across the country, will total more than $100,000.

The newly funded grants will support the projects of Pam Hinds, RN/PhD of the Children’s Research Institute in Washington, D.C. to examine preliminary content validation steps for pediatric oncology patient self-report; Celeste Phillips-Salimi, PhD of the University of Kentucky Research Foundation in Lexington, KY to research the development of connectedness with healthcare providers scale for adolescents and young adults with cancer; and Gloanna Peek, RN/MSN of the University of Arizona in Tucson, AZ for her work to facilitate coping interviews in parents of children newly diagnosed with cancer.

With a mission of finding better treatments and cures for all kids with cancer, ALSF added the Nurse Researcher Grant Program to its already innovative pediatric research program in 2007. Believing that the lives of children battling cancer could be improved through the work of nurses on the front lines, ALSF became the first national childhood cancer charity to fund nursing research. In addition to funding the research of nurses, the Foundation also holds a Nurse Researcher Workshop for novice nurses seeking funding for their childhood cancer research.

“We feel that finding the causes and cures for kids with cancer is vitally important, but also recognize the importance of their quality of care and life as they face the disease,” says Liz Scott, Alex’s mom. “Through our own experience, we know that nurses have a unique view into the lives and struggles of patients and their families as they undergo treatment and the effects they will face after. These grants allow us to tap into the nurses’ wealth of knowledge to improve these young lives as we take strides toward finding cures.”

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