Contemporary Clinical Trials Communications · Published 2026-06-01 · DOI 10.1016/j.conctc.2026.101651
Christina L. Boisseau, Heather J. Risser, Miguel A. Herrera, Clara Law, Zoran Martinovich, Spencer St. Jean, Yufan Wang
Background: Children in foster care experience disproportionately high rates of mental illness, yet most do not receive timely or evidence-based mental health treatment. Foster parents play a critical role in treatment engagement but face substantial structural and informational barriers to accessing care. Objective: This study describes the development, human-centered design, open and pilot randomized controlled trial of Family Navigator Plus (FN+), a telehealth-delivered family navigation intervention designed to increase foster parent activation and reduce barriers to mental health treatment access for children in foster care. Methods: FN+ is a 5-week, manualized intervention delivered via telehealth by trained community health workers. The study includes three phases: 1) human-centered design interviews with foster parents, caseworkers, and providers; 2) an open trial (N = 12) to refine the intervention; and 3) a pilot randomized controlled trial (N = 60) comparing FN + to an attention control condition focused on youth civic engagement. The primary outcome is foster parent activation in the child's mental health care. Conclusions: This study will provide critical feasibility, acceptability, and preliminary effectiveness data for a scalable, cost-effective approach to improving mental health care access for children in foster care.
Abstract from DOAJ. Public domain (CC0 1.0).
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Boisseau, C., Risser, H., Herrera, M., et al. (2026). A family navigator model for foster parents to promote youth mental health wellness: Study development and protocol. Contemporary Clinical Trials Communications. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.conctc.2026.101651