Patient Navigators for Children's Community Mental Health Services in High Poverty Urban Communities

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Project Summary The purpose of this grant is to study a model of mental health navigation for African American and Latinx children in high poverty urban communities focused on reducing key parental attitudinal barriers to care. Reducing persistent racial and ethnic disparities in children’s mental health is a national priority and patient navigation is a highly promising approach that is rarely used in children’s mental health services. The study will examine the effectiveness of two types of navigators: paraprofessionals (PP) who have strong community knowledge, and case managers (CM) who are formally trained. The study will examine specific mechanisms of navigator effectiveness in children’s mental health and compare the two types of navigators to provide a rigorous test of the proposed mechanisms. The knowledge gained from this application may be important to reducing disparities and employing the workforce best suited to navigation in the community mental health system. Two community boards, one focused on identifying factors important to supporting navigators at the agencies, and the other focused on implications for state and federal policy, will meet annually with the goal of identifying key findings with the potential to influence local, state, and national priorities for children’s mental health.