Adapting Youth Nominated Support Team (YST) to Prevent Suicide

May 29, 2026 updated by: Corianna Sichel, Columbia University

Adapting Youth Nominated Support Team (YST) to Prevent the Escalation of Suicide Risk Among Youth on Probation

The goal of this study is to conduct a pilot test of a mental health support program called the Youth-Nominated Support Team - Probation (YST-P) for young people ages 12-17 on probation, experiencing suicidal ideation and behaviors (SIB). Young people on probation experience SIB at higher rates than youth in the general population, but often do not receive the mental health care they need due to multi-level barriers. YST-P is adapted from an existing evidence-based, social support intervention, Youth-Nominated Support Team (YST), which is a psychoeducational, social support intervention originally created as an adjunctive to standard behavioral health (BH) treatment for youth with suicide risk following psychiatric hospitalization. YST-P is an adaptation of YST designed to meet the unique needs of youth on probation, addressing their SIB and increasing their uptake of treatment, by leveraging their existing social networks. YST-P is designed as an early intervention program to prevent escalation of SIB and increase probation youths' treatment uptake, bridging them to care. The study entails a single-arm pilot to examine reductions in SIB (within-subject comparison), and increased treatment uptake (comparing YST-P participants to a propensity-matched, historical control). This study will additionally explore theorized mechanisms of intervention action as well as implementation outcomes and barriers/facilitators to YST-P. The goal is for results from this study to inform a larger, fully powered effectiveness trial, as well as future studies leveraging youths' existing social support networks to prevent SIB and bridge them to care.

Study Overview

Status

Recruiting

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Detailed Description

The goal of YST-P is to improve youths' SIB and their uptake of behavioral health (BH) services (defined as intake +1 session), examining multilevel inner/outer context and bridging factors that influence implementation of YST-P. The proposed hybrid (Type I) effectiveness-implementation study will occur in two counties on Long Island in New York State: Suffolk County and Nassau County. Guided by Heaney and Israel's Social Support for Health (SSH) framework, Social Cognitive Theory (SCT), and the Exploration, Preparation, Implementation, and Sustainment (EPIS) framework, the larger project comprises three phases:

Phase 1: formative qualitative work with key stakeholders.

Phase 2: adaptation (informed by formative work) of existing YST protocols and materials to create YST-P through stakeholder consultant workgroups.

Phase 3 (clinical trial): single-arm YST-P pilot trial, implemented at a community-based BH agency, to examine preliminary evidence of (a) reductions in SIB (within-subject comparison in sample of N=40 YST-P participants), (b) increased treatment uptake (comparing YST-P participants to a propensity matched, historical control, with uptake defined as intake +1 session), exploring theory-driven mediators/moderators (e.g., youth personal factors/coping resources; family environment and resources) on SIB and treatment uptake.

The investigators will additionally examine YST-P implementation outcomes and elucidate multi-level inner/outer context and bridging factors, to inform a larger study. During the clinical trial, investigators will collect quantitative (surveys and structured interviews) and qualitative (interviews and focus groups) data from youth/caregivers, supportive adults, probation staff, and Intervention Specialists at multiple timepoints across the implementation period. Investigators will also collect administrative records data on all youth endorsing suicidal ideation at probation intake, beginning one year prior to YST-P implementation (historical control) and continuing throughout the intervention period.

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Estimated)

137

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 Contact

Study Contact Backup

Study Locations

  • United States
    • New York
      • New York, New York, United States, 10032
        • Recruiting
        • Columbia University Irving Medical Center (CUIMC) Alianza Dominicana Triangle Building
        • Principal Investigator:
          • Corianna E Sichel, PhD
        • Contact:

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
  • Older Adult

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

No

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

YST-P Pilot Youth on probation, referred to study by YST Intervention Specialist (n=40)

  1. Conversational in English (self-report/caregiver)
  2. Age 12-17years 11months (self-report/caregiver)
  3. Probation involvement (probation staff)
  4. Have a caregiver who is willing to participate (caregiver)
  5. Endorsed PY suicidal ideation (probation staff)
  6. Nominated 2-4 supportive adults, at least 2 of whom are willing to participate (Intervention Specialist, supportive adult)

Caregivers, referred to study by YST Intervention Specialist (n=40)

  1. Conversational in English (self-report)
  2. Caregiver of a youth who is eligible and willing to participate (probation referral, youth report)

Supportive adults, referred to study by YST Intervention Specialist (n=40)

  1. Participating as a supportive adult in YST-P as indicated by completion of YST-P psychoeducational session (Intervention Specialist report)
  2. Conversational in English (self-report)
  3. Approved by youths' caregiver (caregiver)
  4. Be appropriate as determined by the YST-P Intervention Specialist (Intervention Specialist).

Probation staff, assisted by agency leadership (n=15)

  1. Conversational in English (self-report)
  2. Employed by Suffolk or Nassau County Probation working with youth (self-report/agency leadership)

Intervention Specialists, assisted by agency leadership (n=2)

  1. Conversational in English (self-report)
  2. Employed by Hope for Youth Licensed behavioral health clinician (self-report/agency leadership)
  3. Trained as YST-P Intervention Specialists (Research team)
  4. Facilitating the YST-P intervention (Research team)

Exclusion Criteria:

- Participants not meeting all inclusion criteria will be excluded from research activities.

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: Health Services Research
  • Allocation: N/A
  • Interventional Model: Single Group Assignment
  • Masking: None (Open Label)

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Youth
Youth with an active probation case with reported past year suicidal ideation who receive the YST-P intervention (n=40).
Behavioral: Youth-Nominated Support Team for Probation
YST-P is a social support intervention to leverage youths' existing relationships as an approach to decrease SIB and address multilevel barriers to care for youth on probation.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Youth Suicide Ideation and Behaviors
Time Frame: Assessed at baseline, at completion of the 3-month intervention, and also 6-month post-baseline

Youth suicide ideation and behaviors will be calculated using the GAIN Short Screener (GAIN-SS) ver. 3.0.2.

The GAIN-SS is scored on five items, each ranging from 0 to 4, where 0 = never and 4 = problems reported in the past month. Lower scores indicate better outcomes.
Assessed at baseline, at completion of the 3-month intervention, and also 6-month post-baseline

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Youth treatment uptake
Time Frame: Up to 14 months
Youth treatment uptake will be defined as completing intake plus one additional session of behavioral health treatment.
Up to 14 months

Collaborators and Investigators

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

Sponsor

Columbia University

Collaborators

National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)

Investigators

  • Principal Investigator: Corianna E Sichel, PhD, Columbia University

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

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 (Estimated)

September 1, 2026

Primary Completion (Estimated)

July 31, 2028

Study Completion (Estimated)

July 31, 2028

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

April 24, 2026

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

April 24, 2026

First Posted (Actual)

April 30, 2026

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Actual)

June 2, 2026

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

May 29, 2026

Last Verified

May 1, 2026

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Additional Relevant MeSH Terms

Other Study ID Numbers

  • AAAV6265
  • 1R34MH139837-01 (U.S. NIH Grant/Contract)

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?

UNDECIDED

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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