Helping Youth on the Path to Employment

Not Applicable

Active, not recruiting

• Conditions: Educational Problems; Mental Impairment
• Interventions: Behavioral: Weekly Meetings with a Supported Employment/Supported Education Specialist; Behavioral: Enhanced Services as Usual; Behavioral: Focused Skill and Strategy Training (FSST)

• Registration Number: NCT04254562
• Lead Sponsor: University of Massachusetts, Worcester

Brief Summary

Helping Youth on the Path to Employment (HYPE): Creating economic self-sufficiency, a randomized-controlled implementation efficacy hybrid trial, will test a manualized intervention combining educational and employment supports for young adults with mental health conditions on a college campus.

Detailed Description

Previous controlled trials in mature adult subjects has consistently demonstrated that Supported Employment interventions (i.e., Individual Placement and Supports) elicit benefit for those with mental health conditions in getting and keeping productive work. Similarly, previous research demonstrates that Supported Education has efficacy in helping young adults with mental health conditions in their academics. However, to date, no evidence-based practice exists which combines both supported education and supported employment interventions into a single model that has efficacy and utility for young adults with serious mental health conditions. Supported Education has been fruitful for navigating academics, but hasn't demonstrated efficacy for supporting young adults with their careers, and Supported Employment programs, like IPS, have shown poor efficacy for helping young adults, as it was designed to assist mature adults. Therefore, the HYPE Model will become the first evidence-informed intervention to combine Supported Employment and Supported Education paradigms in an effort to help young adults with mental health conditions successfully navigate college so they can move into a primary labor market career and attain economic self-sufficiency. Furthermore, this study will be employed from within the university setting itself, on the college campus, and will be embedded directly in either Services for Students with Disabilities (SSD) (i.e., Office of disability services) or Office of Counseling Services.

Study Timeline

• Study Start: 2019-10-11
• Study First Submitted: 2020-01-15
• Study First Submitted QC: 2020-01-31
• Study First Posted: 2020-02-05
• Primary Completion: 2023-01-30
• Status Verified: 2024-04
• Last Update Submitted: 2024-04-25
• Last Update Posted: 2024-04-26
• Study Completion: 2024-09-30

Recruitment & Eligibility

• Status: ACTIVE_NOT_RECRUITING
• Sex: All
• Target Recruitment: 103

Inclusion Criteria

• be between 18-30 years of age
• able to speak and read English fluently
• cognitively capable of providing informed consent and participating in study activities;
• enrolled in a minimum of six credits at a campus-based accredited college (two year or four-year programs)
• intending to enroll in a minimum of four semesters of college courses with the expectation of being continuously enrolled
• have had at least one prior academic disruption during a college academic semester - (e.g., withdrawal from postsecondary institutions; academic probation; not meeting satisfactory academic progress; or a prior leave of absence) prior to study enrollment
• currently have a diagnosed mental health condition by a licensed mental health provider under the DSM-V Axis 1 diagnoses (schizophrenia or other psychotic disorders, anxiety disorders, mood disorders, eating disorders, attention deficits and disruptive behavior disorders) or have been deemed eligible for ADA protections due to a disabling mental health condition - (e.g., receiving state vocational agency services, SSI/DI benefits, or postsecondary accommodations).

Exclusion Criteria

• have received or are receiving supports consistent with HYPE in the past year;
• have had no impact to academic success in college (i.e. disruption);
• have a secondary autism spectrum disorder, traumatic brain injury, or other neurodevelopmental or neurocognitive disorder affecting cognition;
• are currently incarcerated prisoners;
• are unable to speak or read English fluently;
• are under age 18 or require a legal guardian to provide informed consent;
• lack the cognitive capability to provide informed consent on their own

Study & Design

• Study Type: INTERVENTIONAL
• Study Design: PARALLEL

Arm && Interventions

Group	Intervention	Description
Experimental Group: HYPE Services	Weekly Meetings with a Supported Employment/Supported Education Specialist	The experimental arm will receive the HYPE intervention for 12 months.
Experimental Group: HYPE Services	Focused Skill and Strategy Training (FSST)	The experimental arm will receive the HYPE intervention for 12 months.
Control Group: Enhanced Academic Services as Usual	Enhanced Services as Usual	The control arm will receive a special personalized packet of resources available on campus and off-campus within a 10-mile radius, as "enhanced academic services as usual."

Primary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Number of students making satisfactory academic progress	24 months	Number of students making satisfactory academic progress (SAP), defined as a student completing two-thirds of the courses they enroll in each semester and achieving a GPA of 2.0 or greater
Number of students with disruptions toward completion of college degree.	24 months	Number of students with disruptions toward completion of college degree, defined as withdrawal from postsecondary institutions, academic probation, not meeting satisfactory academic progress, or a leave of absence

Secondary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Change in frequency of educational barriers	24 months	The average frequency of educational barriers experienced by participants, defined as the specific challenges participants face in their pursuit of postsecondary education and whether and how their use of accommodations through campus disability services has or would be helpful for them. This will be measured with the Educational Barriers Questionnaire.
Change in levels of perceived Stress	24 months	Change in levels of perceived stress throughout the study in the experimental condition, measured by the perceived stress scale.
Academic Self-Efficacy	24 months	Changes in academic self-efficacy among students across the study will be measured with the college self-efficacy scale and is defined as assess the degree to which participants' feel confident in their ability to complete tasks in college
Reliance on Social Security Benefits	24 months	Changes on students' reliance on Social Security benefits will be measured via self-report on the Baseline and Follow-up Demographics surveys

Trial Locations

Locations (3)

Binghamton University; 🇺🇸 Binghamton, New York, United States

Colorado State University; 🇺🇸 Fort Collins, Colorado, United States

UMass Medical School; 🇺🇸 Worcester, Massachusetts, United States