Better Access to and Integration of Mental Health and Addiction Services Through Navigation: A Mixed-Methods Adaptive Pragmatic Clinical Trial

Summary

The Family Navigation Project (FNP), a youth and family mental health and addictions (MHA) navigation service that currently operates in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), is expanding to northern Ontario by setting up a new site in the Sudbury and Manitoulin districts. This work is being done in partnership with Compass/Boussole/Akii-Izhinoogan, the lead child and youth mental health agency for Sudbury-Manitoulin. An innovative clinical trial will be conducted following the setup of FNP in Sudbury-Manitoulin, which will test how well the model works for the community in this area. The team will collect information about the experiences and outcomes of the youth and families who use the service. The goal is to see whether FNP leads to better outcomes for youth and families, such as getting help sooner, feeling more supported, and being able to use the healthcare system more efficiently. The trial will use a mixed methods approach, meaning it gathers both numbers (e.g., wait times and service use) and personal experiences (e.g., whether families feel supported). This will provide a rich, in-depth picture of how navigation services work in a northern community and how they impact the lives of young people and their families living there.

Conditions

• Mental Health
• Addictions
• Patient Navigation
• Health Services

Interventions

OTHER

Family Navigation Project

The intervention that will be administered to all participants is the Family Navigation Project (FNP). FNP is a navigation service for youth ages 11 to 29 with mental health and/or addictions (MHA) concerns and their family of choice. Youth and/or their family of choice work with a Family Navigator who supports them in finding and accessing MHA resources. Navigators also support clients with sequencing care, connecting and communicating with resources, care coordination and integration, etc. After connecting clients to care, navigators will continue to check in with clients to learn whether the resources have been a good fit and if they are satisfied, or if they would like to explore other options. Navigators may also connect clients to FNP's lived experience team members, who provide peer support to youth and caregiver clients. There is no time limit to navigation and clients may re-connect with their navigator at any time. Clients can meet with navigators virtually or in-person.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR)

  collaborator OTHER_GOV

• Laurentian University

  collaborator OTHER

• Sunnybrook Research Institute

  collaborator OTHER

• Health Sciences North

  collaborator OTHER

• Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre

  lead OTHER

Study Design

Allocation

NA

Purpose

HEALTH_SERVICES_RESEARCH

Masking

NONE

Model

SINGLE_GROUP

Eligibility

Min Age

11 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2026-10-31

Primary Completion

2029-10-31

Completion

2029-10-31

Countries

• Canada

Study Locations