Despite the well-documented overrepresentation of Latinx youth in the juvenile justice and child welfare systems and inequities in behavioral health (mental health, substance use) outcomes for these youth, Latinx families experience significant barriers to accessing evidence-based behavioral health care (Church, 2006; Church et al., 2005; Winkelman et al., 2017). Limited culturally- and linguistically-responsive family-based services contribute to lower rates of service access for Latinx compared to White systems-involved youth (Abram et al., 2008). Despite ample evidence family-based treatment is effective in reducing recidivism risk (Lipsey, 2009) and improving behavioral health outcomes, removal from the home compounds existing barriers to family-based treatment. 

We propose to address this inequity in availability of empirically-supported, culturally relevant behavioral health services by adapting an existing efficacious family-based intervention (Tolou-Shams et al., 2017), specifically for Latinx system-involved youth and families. Given barriers to in-person intervention when youth are placed out-of-home and in the context of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, we aim to test the feasibility and acceptability of this culturally adapted family-based intervention to be delivered remotely via telehealth. The 5-session intervention focuses on teaching caregivers and youth affect management and communication skills to promote healthier family relationships that will thereby improve family reunification and downstream youth behavioral health outcomes. The proposed study capitalizes on an ongoing collaboration between the intervention developer (Co-PI Tolou-Shams), an ongoing trial of the telehealth version of the intervention in English through the Family Telehealth Project (led by Co-PIs Folk and Tolou-Shams), and the cultural adaptation team (Co-Is Meza, Del Cid, Holloway, and Hoskins).