Health Equity and Rural Education (HERE!) Clinical Trial
NCT Number: NCT06460116
Acronym: HERE
Status: NOT_YET_RECRUITING
Study Type: INTERVENTIONAL
Phases: NA
Conditions: Behavioral Symptoms|Community Health Workers|Social Determinants of Health|Educational Problems
Interventions: BEHAVIORAL: School-Based Community Health Worker (SB-CHW) intervention|BEHAVIORAL: Enhanced Usual Care (EUC) Methods
Sponsor: University of Kansas Medical Center
Collaborators: National Institute of Nursing Research (NINR)|National Institutes of Health (NIH)
Sex: ALL
Age: CHILD, ADULT, OLDER_ADULT
Enrollment: 126
Study Design: Allocation: NON_RANDOMIZED|Intervention Model: PARALLEL|Masking: NONE|Primary Purpose: TREATMENT
Start Date: 2024-09-01
Completion Date: 2025-12-31
Locations: University of Kansas Medical Center, Kansas City, Kansas, 66160, United States

Summary:
The goal of this community-engaged research is two-fold. The first goal is to gather stakeholder feedback to inform a school-based community health worker intervention with youth with poor school attendance and an enhanced usual care condition. The second goal is to evaluate the feasibility of implementing the school-based community health worker intervention and enhanced usual care approach within rural schools.

The main question it aims to answer is whether it is feasibile to recruit children with poor school attendance and their families to the intervention, to complete the trauma-informed intervention, and to complete the associated study measures of meeting social determinants of health/mental health needs, school-based health center utilization, and behavioral helath symptoms. At least 38 rural students in grades 6-12 with poor school attendance and their parents/guardians will meet with the school-based community health worker for support around social determinants of health needs that may be barriers to attendance. Researchers will also assess the feasibility of recruiting at least 10 rural students and their parents/guardians to complete the study measures in an enhanced usual care condition in which the school-based health center without a school-based community health worker is reminded of the availability of an online social services directory.

Primary Outcome Measures: School Based Health Services Utilization, The number of visits to School Based Health Centers (SBHC), At study completion (an average of 10 months/1 school year)|School Attendance, The number of school days in attendance, collected by ½ day increments

1(b) determination whether the student continues to meet the definition of chronic poor attendance (Yes/No), At study completion (an average of 10 months/1 school year)
Secondary Outcome Measures: Parent & Child Self-Sufficiency and Needs, Arizona Self-Sufficiency Matrix. An 18-item self-report measure assessing needs on a 5-point Likert scale, including Housing, Employment, Income, Food, Childcare, Children's Education, Adult Education, Health Care Coverage, Life Skills, Family/Social Relations, Mobility, Community Involvement, Parenting Skills, Legal, Mental Health, Substance Abuse, Safety, and Disabilities., At enrollment, at study completion (an average of 10 months/1 school year)|Child and Adolescent Needs and Strengths, Child and Adolescent Needs and Strengths (CANS) is a validated semi-structured interview that assesses children's exposure to potentially traumatic experiences \& level of traumatic stress symptoms, as well as considering strengths (Kisiel \& Fehrenbach, 2015)., At enrollment, at study completion (an average of 10 months/1 school year)|Family Engagement, The Family Engagement Survey -- Version 2 (FES), a validated measure of family and school engagement consisting of 20 items rated on a Likert-type scale from 1 (Strongly Disagree) to 5 (Strongly Agree)., At enrollment, at study completion (an average of 10 months/1 school year)|School-Based Community Health Worker Interactions, Number of CHW interactions with the student, parent/guardian, and/or both, At study completion (an average of 10 months/1 school year)|Process for Enhanced Usual Care, Use of resources from the online social services directory (yes/no), At enrollment, at study completion (an average of 10 months/1 school year)