Family Partner Navigation for Children

The goal of this study is to determine the optimal delivery of a Family Navigation (FN) model that increases engagement in services to address children's behavioral health. While there is strong evidence that navigation decreases barriers to care for low income and minority families, little is known about which specific components contribute to its efficacy. The investigators propose to use MOST, a pioneering, engineering-inspired framework, to assess the performance of individual intervention components and their interactions. Delivery of FN will be systematically varied across four components, each of which is represented by a separate factor in the 2x2x2x2 factorial study design. Specifically, each family will be randomly assigned to one of two conditions within each of four factors or delivery strategies, defining sixteen separate experimental conditions. Strategies include: (A) technology-assisted delivery of care coordination using an innovative, web-based platform called Act.MD (compared to usual care); (B) clinic based FN + community-based (compared to clinic-based only); (C) enhanced symptom tracking using more frequent behavioral symptom tracking (compared to standard pediatric surveillance); and (d) individually-tailored visits (compared to a predetermined schedule of contacts). All children will be followed through the electronic health record (EHR) for 12 months, for outcomes in services access and symptom tracking. The main effects will be estimated of the four experimental factors and their interactions on the study's primary outcome - family engagement in services to address their child's behavioral health. This information then guides assembly of an optimized FN model that achieves the primary outcomes with least resource consumption and participant burden. Children will be enrolled if they have a positive behavioral health screen OR parent concern. A "watchful waiting" group for families of children with more mild symptoms and/or who do not choose to access child behavioral services at the time of the index visit with the Family Partner (FP) will be included. These families will be followed and child symptoms tracked at 3, 6, 9 and 12 months. If the watchful waiting children have an increase in symptom severity, and/or the family later desires services, they will have the opportunity to receive FN services and be randomized to a study condition.