Foster Care Mental Health Family Navigator (FCFN)

University of California San Francisco (UCSF)

Status: Completed

Conditions: Mental Health

Treatments: Behavioral: Standard of care engagement practices; Behavioral: Family-based mental health navigation

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other; NIH

Identifiers

NCT04506437

1R34MH119433-01A1 (U.S. NIH Grant/Contract)

Details and patient eligibility

About

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.

Full 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.

Enrollment: 124 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 12 to 17 years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

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

Trial design

Primary purpose: Treatment

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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124 participants in 2 patient groups

Family-based mental health navigation

Experimental group

Description:

Family-based navigator intervention combined with mHealth practices to improve mental health treatment initiation and engagement

Treatment:

Behavioral: Family-based mental health navigation

Standard of care, then family-based mental health navigation

Active Comparator group

Description:

During wait-list period receive standard of care engagement practices and services-as-usual, and after the wait-list period the participants receive the family-based navigator intervention combined with mHealth practices

Treatment:

Behavioral: Family-based mental health navigation

Behavioral: Standard of care engagement practices