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NCT Number: NCT06460116

Health Equity and Rural Education (HERE!) Clinical Trial

The goal of this community-engaged research is two-fold. The first goal is to gather stakeholder feedback to inform a school-based community health worker intervention with youth with poor school attendance and an enhanced usual care condition. The second goal is to evaluate the feasibility of implementing the school-based community health worker intervention and enhanced usual care approach within rural schools.

The main question it aims to answer is whether it is feasibile to recruit children with poor school attendance and their families to the intervention, to complete the trauma-informed intervention, and to complete the associated study measures of meeting social determinants of health/mental health needs, school-based health center utilization, and behavioral helath symptoms. At least 38 rural students in grades 6-12 with poor school attendance and their parents/guardians will meet with the school-based community health worker for support around social determinants of health needs that may be barriers to attendance. Researchers will also assess the feasibility of recruiting at least 10 rural students and their parents/guardians to complete the study measures in an enhanced usual care condition in which the school-based health center without a school-based community health worker is reminded of the availability of an online social services directory.

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Key information

Conditions

Behavioral Symptoms Behavior Community Health Workers Educational Problems Social Determinants of Health

Age range

12 year and older

Sex eligibility

All sexes

Study type

Interventional

Phase

Not applicable

Primary location

University of Kansas Medical Center

Kansas City, Kansas, 66160, United States

Location status: Recruiting

About this study

The HERE pilot study will consist of two phases to strengthen and finalize the HERE school-based community health worker (SB-CHW) intervention. The 6-month Phase I will provide broad stakeholder feedback on the proposed model and rationale, the SB-CHW intervention, the associated domains and measures, and the evaluation. The following 18-month Phase II will align with the school year and provide a feasibility test of the training, intervention, data collection, and analyses.

Who can participate

Healthy volunteers accepted: Yes

Only the study team can determine whether someone qualifies for participation.

Phase I Stakeholder Interviews (nonintervention):

Inclusion criteria

  • A member of the program's Community Advisory Board, including community health workers;
  • Caregiver of a child ages 12-18 from the Southeast Kansas region; or
  • Student at least 12 years in age.

Phase II Feasibility Pilot- SB-CHW Intervention and Enhanced Usual Care Conditions

Inclusion criteria

  • Children ages 12-18 and their parents/guardians from the Southeast Kansas region
  • Student with or at risk for chronic poor attendance (missing 10% or more of the days that school has been in session at any point in the school year)

Exclusion criteria

  • Parents/guardians or youth with profound intellectual/cognitive disability will be excluded.

Treatment and study plan

School-Based Community Health Worker (SB-CHW) intervention

Behavioral

The school-based community health worker will support students with chronic poor attendance and their parent/guardian for a minimum of two 30-minute encounters focused on addressing social determinants needs, understanding the range/student encounter varies greatly due to the intensity of the social need(s) (e.g., crisis/noncrisis) and the number of needs being jointly addressed. The SB-CHW will build relationships across encounters and apply trauma-informed best practices.

Enhanced Usual Care (EUC) Methods

Behavioral

The network of school-based health centers without school-based community health workers will receive reminders of the the existing online social services directory.

Primary outcomes

  1. School Based Health Services Utilization

    Time frame: At study completion (an average of 10 months/1 school year)

    The number of visits to School Based Health Centers (SBHC)

  2. School Attendance

    Time frame: At study completion (an average of 10 months/1 school year)

    The number of school days in attendance, collected by ½ day increments

    1(b) determination whether the student continues to meet the definition of chronic poor attendance (Yes/No)

Secondary outcomes

  1. Parent & Child Self-Sufficiency and Needs

    Time frame: At enrollment, at study completion (an average of 10 months/1 school year)

    Arizona Self-Sufficiency Matrix. An 18-item self-report measure assessing needs on a 5-point Likert scale, including Housing, Employment, Income, Food, Childcare, Children's Education, Adult Education, Health Care Coverage, Life Skills, Family/Social Relations, Mobility, Community Involvement, Parenting Skills, Legal, Mental Health, Substance Abuse, Safety, and Disabilities.

  2. Child and Adolescent Needs and Strengths

    Time frame: At enrollment, at study completion (an average of 10 months/1 school year)

    Child and Adolescent Needs and Strengths (CANS) is a validated semi-structured interview that assesses children's exposure to potentially traumatic experiences & level of traumatic stress symptoms, as well as considering strengths (Kisiel & Fehrenbach, 2015).

  3. Family Engagement

    Time frame: At enrollment, at study completion (an average of 10 months/1 school year)

    The Family Engagement Survey -- Version 2 (FES), a validated measure of family and school engagement consisting of 20 items rated on a Likert-type scale from 1 (Strongly Disagree) to 5 (Strongly Agree).

  4. School-Based Community Health Worker Interactions

    Time frame: At study completion (an average of 10 months/1 school year)

    Number of CHW interactions with the student, parent/guardian, and/or both

  5. Process for Enhanced Usual Care

    Time frame: At enrollment, at study completion (an average of 10 months/1 school year)

    Use of resources from the online social services directory (yes/no)

Study contacts

Contact information is provided by the study sponsor or research team.

Eve-Lynn Nelson, PhD

CONTACT

[email protected]

(913) 588-6323

Kelsey Dean

CONTACT

[email protected]

(816) 652-0065

Sponsors and collaborators

Lead sponsor

University of Kansas Medical Center

Other

Collaborators

  • National Institute of Nursing Research (NINR)
  • National Institutes of Health (NIH)

Registry information

Official study title

Health Equity and Rural Education (HERE!) Clinical Trial: A Healthcare-Community Partnership Leveraging School-Based Community Health Workers to Improve Student Attendance

Acronym: HERE

Important dates

Study start
2026
Primary completion
2026
Study completion
2026
First posted
Jun 14, 2024
Registry last updated
Apr 20, 2026

OpenTrials presents study information sourced from ClinicalTrials.gov. The official registry record should be consulted for the latest information.

View the official ClinicalTrials.gov record (opens in a new tab)

This listing is for discovery and informational purposes only. It is not medical advice, does not guarantee that a study is recruiting, and does not determine eligibility. Contact the study team and a qualified healthcare professional when considering participation.

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