Transitioning Youth Out of Homelessness 2.5 (TYOH 2.5)

September 12, 2025 updated by: Unity Health Toronto

Transitioning Youth Out of Homelessness 2.5: A Co-Designed Strengths-Based Leadership Program for Young People Transitioning Out of Homelessness

The idea for this study came from the research team's current study called Transitioning Youth Out of Homelessness (TYOH) 2.0, which provides coaching and a leadership guide to youth transitioning out of homelessness. Based on feedback from youth and coaches involved in that study, the research team plans to make small changes to the leadership guide and see if it works better as an in-person, four-week leadership program.

All participants in this study will be invited to attend an in-person, four-week leadership program. There will be two programs running at the same time: one in St. Catharines and one in Toronto. The goal is to have 15 participants in each program.

The main purpose of the study is to learn what participants think of the program. The second purpose is to see if there are changes in identity capital (feeling a sense of purpose and confidence in achieving goals) and knowledge about things that are covered in the program, when the research team compares participants' answers at the beginning and at the end of the program.

Study Overview

Status

Completed

Conditions

Detailed Description

This project builds on the research team's current community-based randomized clinical trial (Transitioning Youth Out of Homelessness 2.0) utilizing coaching and a co-designed leadership guide to target identity capital (purpose, control, self-efficacy, and self-esteem) for youth transitioning out of homelessness (all participants are also receiving rent subsidies). Based on preliminary feedback from study youth and coaches involved in the intervention arm, the research team will modify the leadership guide and pilot it in the form of an in-person, four-week leadership program (vs. independent learning in the current study).

The overarching objective of this mixed methods pilot project is to co-develop and test a strengths-based leadership program targeting identity capital for youth (16-24 years of age) transitioning out of homelessness. Specifically, the objectives are to:

  1. Modify the leadership guide being used in the research team's current study so it can be delivered as an in-person leadership program.
  2. Co-develop and pilot a four-week, strengths-based leadership program for young people transitioning out of homelessness.
  3. Determine the feasibility and acceptability of the leadership guide when delivered as a four-week, in-person program (as opposed to independent learning in the current study).
  4. Examine whether self-reported measures of identity capital and knowledge of program material show improvement immediately post-program compared to baseline.
  5. Explore whether there are differences in outcomes by sub-groups (e.g., gender, age, identification as 2SLGBTQ+, child welfare involvement) and/or program participation levels.

If this modified delivery of the leadership guide shows promise, the research team plans to incorporate it into a national scale-up alongside rent subsidies and coaching.

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Actual)

25

Phase

  • Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Locations

    • Ontario
      • Toronto, Ontario, Canada
        • Unity Health Toronto

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

  • Child
  • Adult

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Description

Eligible young people aged 16-24 years who have transitioned out of homelessness (e.g., no longer living in a shelter or couch surfing), defined as 3 consecutive months within the past 12 months, will be identified by community partners (note: for the purpose of this study, youth living in foster care will be considered homeless).

This age mandate was chosen because this is the age group served by the community partners. The research team has chosen to target the first year of exiting homelessness because collective experience has shown that this can be a particularly precarious time for youth in terms of mental health challenges and risk of (re)experiencing homelessness (even if youth have attempted exits in the past).

Inclusion Criteria:

  • Be able to provide free and informed consent.
  • Be able to understand English (leadership program and data collection will be conducted in English).
  • Have experienced homelessness (e.g., unstable housing arrangements including shelter stays, foster care, and couch surfing) for 3 consecutive months in the past 12 months.
  • Be able to consistently attend the four-week leadership program.

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Enrolled in a program or study with similar features to the TYOH 2.5 leadership program.

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

  • Primary Purpose: Treatment
  • Allocation: N/A
  • Interventional Model: Single Group Assignment
  • Masking: None (Open Label)

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Co-Designed Strengths-Based Leadership Program

Young people transitioning out of homelessness will attend a four-week, strengths-based leadership program.

Two four-week leadership programs (15 youth per program) will be led by coaches from the research team's current TYOH 2.0 study with youth advisors participating as paid leadership interns.

Please see arm description.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Intervention Feasibility and Acceptability (Assessed by Recruitment/Enrolment/Completion Metrics)
Time Frame: Assessed at T0 (pre-intervention), T1 (first day of intervention) and T2 (last day of intervention).

Quantitative measures consisting of recruitment/enrolment/completion metrics will be utilized.

The recruitment rate will be estimated as the proportion of contacted individuals who express interest in participating in the study (T0).

The enrolment rate will be calculated as the proportion of recruited individuals who are eligible and consent to participate in the study (T0).

Participants were considered to have completed the study if they attended the final program session and completed final data collection (T2).

Assessed at T0 (pre-intervention), T1 (first day of intervention) and T2 (last day of intervention).
Intervention Feasibility and Acceptability (Assessed by Program Attendance)
Time Frame: Assessed at T2 (last day of intervention).
Program attendance was calculated as the percentage of total possible leadership program sessions attended (maximum 8 sessions).
Assessed at T2 (last day of intervention).
Intervention Feasibility and Acceptability (Assessed by Program Feedback Questionnaire)
Time Frame: Assessed at T2 (last day of intervention).
This 4-item anonymous questionnaire was developed for this study to collect information about participants' view of the leadership program, the impact of the program on them, and their view of the individuals running the program.
Assessed at T2 (last day of intervention).
Intervention Feasibility and Acceptability (Informed by Focus Groups)
Time Frame: Assessed at T2 (last day of intervention).
Focus group discussions (at T2) with program participants primarily centered around intervention acceptability but also explored the impact of the intervention on identity capital (e.g., sense of purpose and control) and socioeconomic inclusion (e.g., connection to broader social networks). Qualitative data analysis was conducted using reflexive thematic analysis with a critical social theoretical lens. During analysis, focus group transcripts were coded and codes were organized in a code book, clustered into categories, and eventually synthesized into key themes and sub-themes.
Assessed at T2 (last day of intervention).

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Pre-post Intervention Change in Identity Capital (Assessed by Multi-Measure Agentic Personality Scale)
Time Frame: Assessed at T1 (first day of intervention) and T2 (last day of intervention).
The Multi-Measure Agentic Personality Scale (MAPS20) is a 20-item validated self-report measure that explores domains related to identity capital. The MAPS20 contains the following sub-scales: Self-Esteem; Purpose in Life; Internal Locus of Control; Self-Efficacy/Ego Strength. Each subscale has a score range of 5-30, with higher scores indicating greater identity capital.
Assessed at T1 (first day of intervention) and T2 (last day of intervention).
Pre-post Intervention Change in Knowledge of Program Material
Time Frame: Assessed at T1 (first day of intervention) and T2 (last day of intervention).
The composite knowledge assessment scale is 16-item self-report measure that was developed for this study and explores concepts from the program curriculum, such as: mindfulness; core values; purpose; goal setting; growth mindset; identity; and courage. Reported values represent the percentage of participants who answered the question correctly (i.e., agreeing with a correct statement or disagreeing with an incorrect statement).
Assessed at T1 (first day of intervention) and T2 (last day of intervention).

Other Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Explore whether there are differences in outcomes by sub-groups (e.g., gender, age, identification as 2SLGBTQ+, child welfare involvement) and/or program participation levels.
Time Frame: Assessed at T1 (first day of intervention) and T2 (last day of intervention).

A baseline demographic questionnaire will be utilized (T1), session attendance will be tracked throughout the intervention (T1-T2), and focus group findings will be examined (T2).

The baseline demographic questionnaire is a 18-item self-report measure that was developed for this study and explores domains related to: age; gender; race/ethnicity; sexual orientation; immigration status; child welfare involvement; homelessness entrenchment; education; social support; financial support; and food security.

Assessed at T1 (first day of intervention) and T2 (last day of intervention).

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Publications and helpful links

The person responsible for entering information about the study voluntarily provides these publications. These may be about anything related to the study.

General Publications

  • Côté, J. (2016). The identity capital model: A handbook of theory, methods, and findings.

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start (Actual)

June 11, 2024

Primary Completion (Actual)

August 9, 2024

Study Completion (Actual)

August 9, 2024

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

May 17, 2024

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

May 17, 2024

First Posted (Actual)

May 22, 2024

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Estimated)

September 15, 2025

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

September 12, 2025

Last Verified

September 1, 2024

More Information

Terms related to this study

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?

NO

Drug and device information, study documents

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product

No

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product

No

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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