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Connecting Families

Primary Care | Intervention | Poverty

Living in poverty has a profound negative impact on parenting stress and children's health. When poverty occurs early in childhood and continues for a long time, the impact on child health can be lifelong. Child poverty is common, affecting about 20% of Canadian children. Many low income families may not be receiving all the social benefits for which they are eligible. There are calls for primary care providers to ask patients if they have difficulty making ends meet at the end of the month and to intervene if poverty is identified, but it is not known if intervening can improve parent's and children's health. This study will test whether a Community Support Worker who helps families with young children navigate the social service system by reviewing social needs (like food, housing or energy insecurity) and income supports can lead to increased family income, reduced parenting stress and an improvement in their child's health. The Community Support Worker will help families complete income tax, apply for benefits and community supports for which they are eligible. The investigators will also study the effect of this intervention on health care utilization. Our study will be conducted in Toronto and Kingston in primary care practices participating in the TARGet Kids! primary care research network. Results from this study will help health care providers and policy makers understand whether Community Support Workers are an effective way to integrate the health and social service systems to improve parent and child health.

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Participation Requirements

  • Sex:

    ALL

  • Eligible Ages:

    1 to 3

Participation Criteria

Inclusion Criteria:

* Parents of children (younger than 3 years) attending a regularly scheduled primary care visit.
* Parents respond affirmatively to the question "Do you ever have difficulty making ends meet at the end of the month?"
* Informed parental consent. Only one child will be enrolled per family. For families with more than one child, we will enroll the youngest eligible child, since literature suggests that impact of reducing family stress may be greater at younger ages; for multiple births, one child will be randomly selected for inclusion.

Exclusion Criteria:

1. Parents without legal status in Canada, as they are not eligible for many Canadian social programs.
2. Families who are receiving system navigation support, such as from a social worker or public health nurse, or who have received system navigation support within one year prior to enrolment.
3. Child with a previously diagnosed developmental disorder, genetic, chromosomal or syndromic condition.
4. Child born prematurely (gestational age less than 32 weeks).

Study Location

Queen's Family Health Team
Queen's Family Health Team
Kingston, Ontario
Canada

Contact Study Team

Primary Contact

Dane Mauer-Vakil

[email protected]
613-533-9303
Study Sponsored By
Queen's University
Participants Required
More Information
Study ID: NCT05091957