Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Research Protocols
Date Submitted: Jun 15, 2023
Open Peer Review Period: Jun 15, 2023 - Jul 5, 2023
Date Accepted: Aug 1, 2023
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
Randomized Controlled Trial Protocol of a Foster Care Family Mental Health Navigator Intervention
ABSTRACT
Background:
Youth in the child welfare system have documented high rates of mental health symptoms and experience significant disparities in mental health care services access and engagement. Navigator models have been developed in the healthcare field to address challenges of service access, fragmentation, and continuity that impact quality of care, but at present, there is no empirically supported mental health navigator model to address the unique and complex mental health needs of child welfare involved (CWI) youth and family members.
Objective:
This study will develop and test through a randomized clinical trial (N = 80 caregiver-youth dyads) a Foster Care Family Navigator (FCFN) model to improve mental health service outcomes for CWI adolescents (ages 12-17).
Methods:
This study will develop and test through a randomized clinical trial (N = 80 caregiver-youth dyads) a Foster Care Family Navigator (FCFN) model to improve mental health service outcomes for CWI adolescents (ages 12-17). The navigator model will leverage digital health technology to engage with and improve care coordination, tracking and monitoring of mental health service needs for these CWI youth and families.
Results:
We propose enrollment of 80 dyads by October 2023, final data collection by March 2024, and publication of main findings in December 2024. After final data analysis and writing of the results, the resulting manuscripts will be submitted to journals for dissemination.
Conclusions:
The current study will be the first to produce empirically driven conclusions and recommendations for implementing a family mental health navigation model for CWI youth with long-standing and unaddressed disparities in behavioral health services access. Clinical Trial: The following trial is registered with clinicaltrials.gov (NCT04506437).
Citation
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Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.