Clinical Social Work Scholar at the Pediatric Gastroenterology Clinic at C. S. Mott Children’s Hospital
Tanya Smith, LMSW is a clinical social worker at the Michigan Medicine Transplant Center, working with the Pediatric Liver Transplant, Hepatology and GI clinics. She is a member of the CARES Committee, which is a multidisciplinary team comprised of pediatric social workers, dietitians, and physicians. From its inception, the role of CARES has been to educate, advocate, and promote the unique needs of pediatric and OB specialty areas. The current mission of the CARES team is to end food insecurity at Michigan Medicine. This is being done through the deployment of a food bag program that services all of Mott Children’s and Von Voigtlander Hospitals. The CARES team also continues to advocate for an onsite food pantry available to all Michigan Medicine patients and staff. Our current research interests are to identify ways in which food insecurity impacts health outcomes in children with chronic illness as well as OB patients, and whether mitigating food insecurity with access to food resources in the context of health system has an effect on reducing health disparities in our population.
