Mental Health
Conditions
Keywords
Adolescent, Foster Care, Mental Health, Navigator, Service Access
Brief summary
This study will focus on developing and testing a family-based mental health navigator intervention, the Foster Care Family Navigator (FCFN), to evaluate whether the intervention combined with mHealth would be efficacious in improving mental health service initiation and engagement for child welfare-involved youth.
Detailed description
The study will demonstrate how a family-based navigator intervention combined with mHealth may lead to improved mental health treatment initiation and engagement among child welfare-involved (CWI) youth. CWI youth have high rates of mental health symptoms relative to youth in the community, and are disproportionately racial and ethnic minorities, only perpetuating disparities in this population's mental health access and engagement. The proposed project will develop and test a family-based navigator intervention, the Foster Care Family Navigator (FCFN), a natural fit for improving CWI youth mental health service and clinical outcomes. The study will start with identifying the feasibility and acceptability of the FCFN intervention. Then, the study will determine whether the FCFN intervention improves CWI youth mental health treatment initiation and engagement, relative to standard of care (not participating in FCFN intervention). Finally, the study will characterize patterns of pre- and post-service outcomes along the behavioral health services cascade of care, to further evaluate the feasibility, acceptability, and preliminary impact of the FCFN model.
Interventions
BEHAVIORALFamily-based mental health navigation
Family-based navigator intervention combined with mHealth practices to improve mental health treatment initiation and engagement
BEHAVIORALStandard of care engagement practices
Standard of care engagement practices and services-as-usual
Sponsors
National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)
University of California, San Francisco
Study design
Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Intervention model
PARALLEL
Primary purpose
TREATMENT
Masking
NONE
Intervention model description
This is a dynamic wait-listed design in which the investigators will test a theory-driven family-based navigator treatment engagement intervention (FCFN) while also collecting data on the FCFN model's potential implementation and adoption within child welfare and behavioral health settings.
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
ALL
Age
12 Years to 17 Years
Healthy volunteers
No
Inclusion criteria
* English-speaking youth * Ages 12-17 * Have an active dependency petition with the SF Unified Family Court (newly filed or existing when the trial starts) * Are open to SF DPH Foster Care Mental Health Clinic services * Have an involved caregiver/legal guardian for consent * Family has mobile phone access
Exclusion criteria
* Youth is not English-speaking * Caregiver has impairment that would preclude providing informed consent * Unavailable guardian for consent
Design outcomes
Primary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Time to treatment referral | 12 months post enrollment | Number of days until treatment referral is made |
| Time to treatment initiation | 12 months post enrollment | Number of days until attendance at first treatment session |
| Treatment engagement | 12 months post enrollment | Engagement as measured by attendance in treatment for 6 or more weeks |
Countries
United States
Outcome results
None listed