Family Navigator Plus for Foster Parents (FN+)

Building Capacity for Youth Mental Wellness: Feasibility and Acceptability for a Mental Health Family Navigator Model for Foster Parents

The investigators have designed a 5-week Family Navigator Plus (FN+) educational program to support foster parents in better understanding their youth's mental health needs and in finding mental health services. The purpose of this interventional study is to assess the the program's acceptability (e.g., satisfaction, barriers to participation, and burden), utility (e.g., how useful foster parents found the program to be), and feasibility (e.g., number referred who meet eligibility, time to complete assessments, self-reported feasibility). The investigators hypothesize that our program will be acceptable, useful, and feasible for foster parents of youth with mental health needs.

Study Overview

• Status: Recruiting
• Conditions: Intervention
• Intervention / Treatment: Behavioral: FN+ Intervention

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Estimated): 12
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

• Study Contact: Name: Heather J Risser, PhD; Phone Number: 312-848-3019; Email: heather.risser@northwestern.edu
• Study Contact Backup: Name: Christina L Boisseau, PhD; Phone Number: 804-332-1627; Email: christina.boisseau@northwestern.edu

Study Locations

• United States
  • Illinois
    • Chicago, Illinois, United States, 60611
      • Recruiting
      • Northwestern University
      • Contact: Heather J Risser, PhD; Phone Number: 312-848-3019; Email: heather.risser@northwestern.edu
      • Contact: Christina L Boisseau, PhD; Phone Number: 804-332-1627; Email: christina.boisseau@northwestern.edu
      • Principal Investigator: Heather J Risser, PhD

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: Adult; Older Adult
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• Foster parent of a youth between the ages of 6 to 17 with mental health needs
• Parent adopted child from foster care
• Living in Illinois, United States
• English or Spanish speaking
• Has access to internet and videoconferencing

Exclusion Criteria:

- Participated in the FN+ Focus Groups or PROACTIVE Parent Pilot Study

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

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

Number of Arms

1

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm

Intervention / Treatment

Experimental: Foster Parents; Participants will consist of adult (age 18 and older) foster parents of youth between the ages of 6 and 17 with mental health needs. Participants will be located in Illinois, and be either English or Spanish speaking. Participants will attend a 5-week educational program (one session per week) that aims to support them in understanding child behaviors, finding and access mental health services, communicating with providers, and using technology to find support.

Behavioral: FN+ Intervention; Participants will attend 5 one-on-one sessions over the course of 5 weeks; they will meet with a family navigator over video conferencing software (e.g., Zoom). The purpose of each sessions are as follows: 1) Provide an overview of the program and help parents understand their perceptions of child behaviors, 2) Train parents to find, access, and overcome barriers to mental health services, 3) Build parent capacity in understanding how mental health treatment works and how to communicate with providers, 4) Help parents understand the common function of child behaviors, and 5) Train parents to find, evaluate, and use online mental health tools. Participants will complete measures of child symptoms, parent activation, barriers to treatment, and/or satisfaction with the program before the intervention, immediately after the intervention, and 3 months after completing the intervention.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Client Satisfaction Questionnaire (CSQ)	The Client Satisfaction Questionnaire (CSQ-8) is an eight-item measure that assesses client satisfaction with services including its quality, utility, and relevance.	Post-Intervention (Week 5) and 3 Month Follow Up (Week 18)
Post Session Questionnaire (PsQ)	The PsQ is a measure we created to assess utility and relevance of session content and materials, and to assess if participants intended to use skills/information learned during that session.	After Completing Each Session (Weeks 1 - 5)

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Parent Activation Measure - Mental Health	The Parent-Patient Activation Measure - Mental Health measures parent activation, defined as the knowledge, ability, and confidence to manage their child's mental health care. It consists of 13 items on a 4-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1-4. Item scores are summed for a total composite score ranging from 13 -52. Composite scores are linearly transformed into scores ranging from 0 - 100. Higher scores indicate higher activation in managing their child's mental health care. PP-PAM-MH internal consistency is adequate, alpha = .89; Item-measures correlations ranged from moderate to large, with a median correlation of .61. The P-PAM-MH is positively correlated with measures of empowerment and negatively correlated with measures of strain.	Baseline (Week 1), Post-Intervention (Week 5), 3 month Follow Up (Week 18)
Barriers to Treatment Participation	The Barriers to Treatment Participation Scale (BTPS; Kazdin et al., 1997), was designed to assess parent's perceptions of barriers to mental health treatment engagement for their children. The scale consists of two sections. The first section contains four subscales that measure the following constructs: stressors and obstacles that compete with treatment (20 items), treatment demands and issues (10 items), perceived relevance of treatment (8 items), and relationship with the therapist (6 items). Response options for these 44 items range from 1 (Never a problem) to 5 (Very often a problem). The second section includes 14 discrete events associated with early treatment termination. Response options for this section include yes and no. Higher scores on the measure indicate more barriers to treatment participation. Scores on the BTPS have been associated with multiple indices measuring the child's participation in treatment. Internal consistency for total score is α =.95, and subscales r	Baseline (Week 1), Post-Intervention (Week 5), 3 month Follow Up (Week 18)
PROMIS-Parent Proxy Pediatric Depressive Symptoms Short Form 8a (parent-report)	The PROMIS Parent Proxy Depressive Symptoms Short Form 8a measures negative mood and views of self, social cognition, and decreased positive affect and engagement in pediatric populations aged 5- to 17-years old (Irwin, et al., 2012). Parents respond to 8 items assessing their child's symptoms of depression. Response options range from 1 (never) to 5 (almost always). Higher scores indicate higher levels of depressive symptoms. Scores are reported as T-scores ranging from 35-82, with a mean of 50 and standard deviation of 10 in the sample referenced (Irwin et al, 2010). Higher scores indicate higher levels of depressive symptoms. Parent proxy measures were created using Item Response Theory to support theoretically maximized reliability and validity across the trait being measured. Parent proxy scores were strongly univocal with 89% of the general variance explained by the scale's general factor. Internal consistency is adequate at .90.	Baseline (Week 1), Post-Intervention (Week 5), 3 month Follow Up (Week 18)
PROMIS-Parent Proxy Pediatric Anxiety Short Form 8a (parent-report)	The PROMIS Parent Proxy Anxiety Short Form 8a measures symptoms of fear, anxious misery, hyperarousal, and somatic symptoms related to arousal among pediatric populations aged 5- to 17-years old (Irwin, et al., 2012). Parents respond to 8 items assessing their child's symptoms of anxiety. Response options range from 1 (never) to 5 (almost always). Higher scores indicate higher levels of anxiety. Scores are reported as T-scores ranging from 32-84, with a mean of 50 and standard deviation of 10 in the sample referenced (Irwin et al, 2010). Higher scores indicate higher levels of anxiety. The measure was created using Item Response Theory to support theoretically maximized reliability and validity across the trait being measured. The parent proxy version was validated against other proxy measures to ensure content and discriminant validity. Parent proxy scores were strongly univocal with 87% of the general variance explained by the scale's general factor. Internal consistency = .90.	Baseline (Week 1), Post-Intervention (Week 5), 3 month Follow Up (Week 18)
Pediatric Symptoms Checklist - 17 (Parent Report)	The Pediatric Symptom Checklist - 17 (PSC-17) was designed to assess psychosocial function in children. The measures includes three subscales that assess symptoms associated with internalizing, externalizing, and attention problems. Response options range from 0 (Never) to 2 (Often). The parent report version is used with children aged 5- to 17- years. T scores range from 0-34, with at or above 15 indicating the presence of a psychosocial impairment. Internalizing or Attention subscale scores at or above 5, and Externalizing scores at or above 7, indicate impairment. The measure has been validated in the general child population. Parent-reported internal consistency range from .79-.83, and overall reliability as .89. A large-scale replication study confirmed reliability was high, with both internal consistency and test-retest reliability both at, or above, 0.85 on the parent report form.	Baseline (Week 1), Post-Intervention (Week 5), 3 month Follow Up (Week 18)

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: Northwestern University
• Collaborators: National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)
• Investigators: Principal Investigator: Heather J Risser, PhD, Northwestern University; Study Director: Enrollment Contact, If interested in participation, Northwestern University email FNplus@northwestern.edu

Publications and helpful links

General Publications

• Risser, H. J., Morford, A. E., Murphy, A. N., Pinkerton, L. M., Law, C., Yang, Y., ... & Boisseau, C. L. (2024). Feasibility and acceptability of a family navigator program to support foster parents of youth with mental health concerns. Children and Youth Services Review, 160, 107578.

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): January 12, 2026
• Primary Completion (Estimated): August 31, 2027
• Study Completion (Estimated): December 31, 2028

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: May 1, 2025
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: May 9, 2025
• First Posted (Actual): May 18, 2025

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): January 27, 2026
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: January 23, 2026
• Last Verified: January 1, 2026

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Keywords: psychoeducation; family navigator; foster parents
• Other Study ID Numbers: STU00222882

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: YES
• IPD Plan Description: Per NIMH Data Sharing policy, de-identified IDP will be shared in the NIMH Data Archive (NDA, https://nda.nih.gov/)
• IPD Sharing Time Frame: Per NIMH Data Sharing policy
• IPD Sharing Access Criteria: Per NIMH Data Sharing policy

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No
• product manufactured in and exported from the U.S.: No