Brief
Improve social interaction among settled refugee children and their peers with a Proof of Concept
Client Graduation Project
Services Smart Object, User Research, Co creation
Timeframe 6 months
Context
80% of refugee children with PTSD do not receive mental health care while needing it.
Most projects aim for non-peer driven groups or intervention from outside sources. Increasing codependency of new refugees during their process of creating a new home.
Result
TAQA, meaning ‘inner energy’ in Arabic, combines elements from ergotherapy and psychotherapeutic methods. Creating a mental safety net for children to turn to when the world seems grim. Empowering them to be confident in their own ability to deal with life’s challenges.
Enabling better integration in a new home.
The psychotherapists were really interested in the concept, as it creates a more feasible approach to measuring the effects of stress. Currently I’m in conversation to adapt the concept to be used in psychotherapy practice.
Safety Net
TAQA’s core technology is dormant until needed, acting as a safety net. The children are free to roam and play and not fear for their past.
RDI methods
TAQA is based on proven psychotherapeutic methods such as Resource Development & Installation (RDI).
By using light, vibration, warmth it applies ergo therapeutic principles to calm children down in moments of extreme stress
thanks to tamara konings
Enabling agency
By putting the focus on inherent resiliency, TAQA enables young children to live fully and not be obstructed by their dark past, but growing stronger because of it.
The process of TAQA
Framing the problem
Orienting research showed most refugee children quickly make friends once they have been allocated a school.
They do suffer however from the effects of trauma which hinders them in their day-to-day life and social interaction.
To gain a better understanding of the immense topic at hand I scoped my research into 4 areas:
Refugee & Background
Culture & Integration
Child development
Trauma & PTSD
revised design statement
Original: How can I improve social interaction between refugee children and their peers?
User research
Operating in between these research areas I sought out a team of experts on the research topics to ensure the product would have a scientific foundation.
Aside from conducting these expert interviews and a heavy amount of desk research, I contacted different schools and organisations for user interviews.
As for ethnographic research, the schoolchildren were asked to keep an emotional diary for a week in which they drew their problems on one page, and the eventual solution on the other.
Analysing research insights
After clustering the research-insights into themes and uncovering the most important findings, I updated the design criteria and created personas with this new information.
The information from the research was formulated into insight statements and put on post-it notes, filling my entire wall with all the highlights. This allowed me to gain a clear sight on the different themes among the research areas.
Defining Strategy
To to gain a clearer view of the problem area I put the clustered insights onto a matrix. By adding existing projects and trauma treatments on this cluster I could pinpoint where the product would bring the most value.
This resulted in exploring the topic of EMDR, RDI treatment and self care, one of the key components to quick trauma recovery.
Ideation & Co-designing solutions
After my own notebook was filled with potential solutions, I conducted multiple co-designing sessions.
After careful consideration of all ideas and combining different elements, I distilled four concepts ready for testing. To ensure the target group would not suffer any mental strain during the project, I consulted the advising experts to review the concepts before conducting the user tests.
One of the four concepts was ruled out because of potential flip side of the mental aspect of the concept.
Iteration & user testing
After testing the three concepts through low fidelity prototypes a vast majority of the children showed love for one in particular.
The expert team also unanimously voted for the same concept. A clear indicator to further iterate on the selected concept.
Further ideation consisted of user tests and quick iterations in terms of shape, interaction and materials.
Development
For the psychotherapeutic aspect of the final product I trusted the expert team who assured me that it would help the children. This to protect the children from any possible mental stress.
The final proof of concept was split in two components the interaction and the physical form. The physical components were created through co-designing workshops with the children, as personalisation was a key component in the final design.
To develop the interactive prototype I reached out to Kevin van den Broek. He helped me code the interactive prototype in Arduino.
Currently I am in the process of acquiring funding & partners to realise and scale TAQA, if you know anyone who wants to be involved, let’s chat
Key learnings & Role
I noted all my learnings from countless hours of co-designing and researching traumatised children and designing for this fragile target group in this article.