Family Mental Health Family Navigator Project (FMHN)

The study will demonstrate how a family-based navigator intervention combined with mHealth may lead to improved mental health treatment initiation and engagement among publicly-insured youth. Publicly-insured 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 Family Mental Health Navigator (FMHN), a natural fit for improving publicly-insured youth's mental health service and clinical outcomes. The study will start with identifying the feasibility and acceptability of the FMHN intervention. Then, the study will determine whether the FMHN intervention improves publicly-insured youth mental health treatment initiation and engagement. 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 FMHN model.

Inclusion criteria

• English-speaking and/or Spanish-speaking youth
• Ages 6-17
• Are currently receiving services at the San Francisco General Hospital
• Are publicly insured
• Have an involved caregiver/legal guardian for consent
• Family has mobile phone access

Exclusion criteria

• Youth is not English-speaking nor Spanish-speaking
• Caregiver has impairment that would preclude providing informed consent
• Unavailable guardian for consent