Text2Connect, Component 2 of iCHART (Integrated Care to Help At-Risk Teens)

Text2Connect (T2C) aims to increase perceived susceptibility/severity of depression/suicidality and decrease stigma in at-risk adolescents and their parents. The investigators hypothesize that modification of patient beliefs leads to change talk, thereby increasing the experience of discrepancy which affects motivation for change. These experiences in turn influence decisional balance away from ambivalence toward readiness for change. Assignment of Interventions: This study utilized an open trial design. A stepped wedge design was originally proposed and efforts were made to adhere to this study design, however after a year of low recruitment and resultant recruitment sites pulling out the of the study, the overall study design was changed to an open trial. Additional recruitment sites were onboarded to the study and provided with the intervention arm in order to obtain feasibility data on the intervention components of the study. As a result of the change, there are some TAU participants included in this study. For reference a stepped wedge design involves the sequential random rollout of an intervention over two time periods. Following a baseline period in which no clusters (=practices) are exposed to the intervention, the crossover is typically in one direction, from control to intervention and continues until both of the clusters have crossed-over to receive the intervention, with observations taken from each cluster and at each time period. This study will pilot Text2Connect in community pediatric and mental health practices using a stepped wedge design (n = 50 adolescents). Hypothesis: Readiness for mental health care will be greater among adolescents in T2C vs adolescents referred during TAU.