Foster Care Mental Health Family Navigator

Not Applicable

Completed

• Conditions: Mental Health

• Registration Number: NCT04506437
• Lead Sponsor: University of California, San Francisco

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.

Study Timeline

• Study First Submitted: 2020-08-06
• Study First Submitted QC: 2020-08-06
• Study First Posted: 2020-08-10
• Study Start: 2020-08-20
• Primary Completion: 2025-04-01
• Study Completion: 2025-04-01
• Status Verified: 2025-06
• Last Update Submitted: 2025-06-05
• Last Update Posted: 2025-06-08

Recruitment & Eligibility

• Status: COMPLETED
• Sex: All
• Target Recruitment: 124

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

Study & Design

• Study Type: INTERVENTIONAL
• Study Design: PARALLEL

Primary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
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

Trial Locations

Locations (1)

UCSF Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital; 🇺🇸 San Francisco, California, United States