Clinical trial NCT06736522: Future Leaders Program: Testing a Youth Civic Leadership, Engagement, and Mindfulness Program
Official title: Can A Youth Civic Leadership, Engagement, and Mindfulness Program Reduce Structural Racism and Support Functioning and Wellbeing for Youth of Color?
Study type: INTERVENTIONAL
Overall status: RECRUITING
Phase: NA
Conditions: Adolescent Behavior Problem
Mental Health Wellness 1
Keywords: mindfulness
civic engagement
civic action
youth leadership
youth wellbeing
Lead sponsor: Boston University Charles River Campus
Sponsor class: OTHER
Collaborators: name: National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH)
First posted: 2024-12-16
Enrollment: 504
Sex: ALL
Minimum age (years): 14
Standard ages: CHILD
ADULT
OLDER_ADULT
Accepts healthy volunteers: yes
Allocation: RANDOMIZED
Intervention model: PARALLEL
Intervention model description: Individually Randomized Group Treatment Trial Design
Primary purpose: PREVENTION

Brief summary: The current study tests the feasibility and effectiveness of a youth intervention designed to provide meaningful leadership opportunities and to address barriers to equity, through the acquisition of civic leadership and development skills as well as mindfulness practice, LEAP: Leadership, Engagement, and youth Activism Program with Mindfulness.

The goal of this project is to determine whether the Leadership, Engagement, and youth Activism Program with Mindfulness (LEAP) curriculum, which was developed with youth of color, is a feasible and effective intervention for fostering civic leadership, civic development, and wellbeing. The investigators seek to understand whether LEAP can support wellbeing for youth of color as a strategy to increase youth mental, emotional, and behavioral (MEB) health and decrease health disparities in youth of color.

Detailed description: The LEAP study will determine whether a 14-session program designed to provide leadership and mindfulness skills to youth of color is an effective and feasible intervention. The curriculum consists of 14 two-hour sessions delivered after school. The comparison group will take part in EnvisionIT, a college and career readiness program designed for students in grades 6 through 12. EnvisionIT aims to prepare students with essential transition skills, digital literacy, and college and career readiness. The comparison group will also have 14 two-hour group sessions. Both LEAP and EnvisionIT will be delivered by trained facilitators. All participants in LEAP and EnvisionIT will be assessed at four time points assessing program outcomes; facilitators will also complete interviews post-intervention and provide feedback on data fidelity and acceptability following each session. This record reports on the UH3 phase of the grant.

Eligibility criteria: Inclusion Criteria:

* Adolescents ages 14 and older in grades 9-12 during the Fall/Winter or in grades 9-11 during the Spring
* Enrolled in a partner site in MA or Chicago, Il
* Adolescents are only included with parent consent and youth assent if they are under the age of 18. Adolescents at least 18 years old can provide consent.

Exclusion Criteria:

* They participated in the pilot phase (UG3)
* They cannot commit to participation in the full study (e.g., attendance at all intervention sessions)
* They are not in grades 9-12 at a partner site
* Parent/guardian has a preferred consent language other than English or Spanish.

Primary outcomes:
measure: Engagement, Perseverance, Optimism, Connectedness, and Happiness (EPOCH; Kern et al., 2016) measure of adolescent wellbeing
timeFrame: Baseline, 2-3 months, 6 months, 9 months
measure: Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ; Goodman, 2001)
timeFrame: Baseline, 2-3 months, 6 months, 9 months
measure: Self-Rated Health 12-item Short-Form Survey (SF-12; Ware et al., 1996)
timeFrame: Baseline, 2-3 months, 6 months, 9 months
Secondary outcomes:
measure: Student Career Construction Inventory (Savickas, 2018)
timeFrame: Baseline, 2-3 months, 6 months, 9 months
measure: Vocational Skills Self-Efficacy (VSSE; McWhirter et al., 2000)
timeFrame: Baseline, 2-3 months, 6 months, 9 months
Other outcomes:
Locations:
city: Chicago
country: United States
facility: University of Illinois, Chicago
state: Illinois
city: Boston
country: United States
facility: METCO
state: Massachusetts
Study officials:
affiliation: Massachusetts General Hospital
name: Mario Cruz-Gonzalez, PhD
role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
References:
citation: Alegria M, Alvarez K, NeMoyer A, Zhen-Duan J, Marsico C, O'Malley IS, Mukthineni R, Porteny T, Herrera CN, Najarro Cermeno J, Kingston K, Sisay E, Trickett E. Development of a Youth Civic Engagement Program: Process and Pilot Testing with a Youth-Partnered Research Team. Am J Community Psychol. 2022 Mar;69(1-2):86-99. doi: 10.1002/ajcp.12548. Epub 2021 Aug 4.