NCT06945055

FAmily Engagement Strategy for Coordinated Specialty Care

Integration of a Culturally Responsive Family Peer Delivered Engagement Strategy in Coordinated Specialty Care

• Status: Recruiting
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 900 (estimated)
• Sponsor: Washington State University · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 18 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Not accepted

Summary

Family members/support persons' engagement in mental health services has been linked to reduced burden and stress and improves engagement and outcomes in individuals in the early stages of psychosis. The goal of FAMES is to address low family member/support person engagement in services. FAMES will also address disparities in coordinated specialty care (CSC) by using a culturally responsive family engagement strategy to be delivered by family peers.

Detailed description

The overall goal of this mixed-methods, clustered stepped-wedged designed study is to examine the effectiveness of a family peer implemented in coordinated specialty care programs at engaging family members in services. The use of a family peer is anticipated to increase family member participant's feelings of connectedness, self-efficacy, and motivation which will in turn improve family member participants engagement in scheduled coordinated specialty care services such as family psychoeducation. Recruitment will consist of dyads compromised of a family member support person and a corresponding individual receiving coordinated specialty care services. Recruitment will occur over two waves, the attention control condition (ACC) and the FAMES condition. The ACC will last for 18 months and will recruit 225 participant dyads during which time family member participants will be contacted weekly for 12 weeks where they will be provided with positively framed messaging, educational materials around psychosis, tips for addressing relevant concerns in areas such as communication and de-escalation, and a list of community-based and online resources and events. The FAMES condition will last for 30 months and will recruit 225 participant dyads during which time family member participants will receive a modified cultural formulation interview, brief check-ins, psychoeducation, and will have access to an online community. Recruitment will take place at nine coordinated specialty care programs across four states (Washington, Oregon, Tennessee, and New Mexico) which have been randomized to a clustered stepped wedge program design.

Conditions

• Family Members
• Implementation

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
BEHAVIORAL	FAMES	225 dyads (family member/support persons and individuals receiving services for psychosis) will be recruited over a period of 30 months. Family member/support persons will be connected to a family peer for a period of 12 weeks who will use the cultural formulated interview to develop rapport and identify unique cultural needs which can inform treatment and resource identification. Participants will receive brief contact, family psychoeducation, and be connected to an online family resource group where they can receive additional support from certified peers and other family member/support persons.
BEHAVIORAL	Control	participants will receive 12 weeks of automated communication which contain positive messaging, appointment reminders, links to community resources, and coping skills.

Timeline

• Start date: 2025-03-01
• Primary completion: 2029-12-01
• Completion: 2029-12-01
• First posted: 2025-04-25
• Last updated: 2026-02-23

Locations

4 sites across 1 country: United States