Justice in the digital society
1.1 The main objective
The Oostvaarderskliniek is a forensics care clinic located in Almere, a town just outside of Amsterdam. The clinic works with TBS (“ter beschikking stelling”) which is a treatment method for ex-detainees who suffer from mental illness. The term, TBS, directly translates to “at the disposal of the government”.
The treatment consists of a minimum 2-year process where the patient undergoes mental health treatment with medication and therapy. The treatment plan has a large focus on preparing the patient for society in order to resocialize in the most efficient and safe manner so the patient is at no risk of recidivism.
We are working towards integrating technology in a meaningful way so it benefits all the involved stakeholders. The main objective of this project is to inspire a mindset change among the caregivers through the incorporation of technology.
Us, the “Justice League”, will document the process here on Medium, of this collaborative research project run by the Digital Society School in partnership with the Ministry of Justice in the Netherlands as well as the Oostvaarderskliniek in Almere. We are working towards integrating technology in a meaningful way so it benefits all the involved stakeholders. The main objective of this project is to inspire a mindset change among the caregivers through the incorporation of technology. We are also investigating which technologies will permeate within the working field as well as those that will fade away. We will look at how such technologies might affect the everyday work life of caregivers at the clinic and how this affects the organization as a whole.
The clinic and the Dutch Ministry of Security and Justice have been looking at integrating social robots into the treatment plan. This could be a way to diminish the risk of loneliness and forgetting to do important tasks.
1.2 We are team “Justice League”
We are a multidisciplinary and international group of one business developer and three designers. We are working on a 5-month research project at the digital society school (DSS) in Amsterdam.
The DSS is a school for people eager to learn how to incorporate technology into society in a meaningful way. Our project, “Justice in the Digital Society” is one out of 9 projects currently being carried out at the DSS. All projects work towards the sustainable development goals (SDG) created by the UN. Our project is working towards four of the UN’s SDGs.
1.3 Understanding caregivers’ mindsets
How can we gain an understanding of the caregivers’ mindset concerning the use of technology in the treatment process?
We aimed towards understanding the caregivers’ frustrations, appreciations, and dreams regarding technology in their work. The research started off with desk research about the clinic, the treatment system TBS, forensics care, and patients’ disorders.
We went to visit the clinic in Almere to get a sense of the facilities and meet a few of the caregivers. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 5 different caregivers. Our findings and main insights were summarized through infographics and user journeys.
A user/emotional journey map was created to visualize the caregivers’ daily work structure in cohesion with the current technologies they use. An emotional graph within the user journey gave insights on where the caregivers experience challenges and where they see room for improvement. We also created a user empathy map that shows what the user says, does, feels and thinks. This method is useful in creating an overview of the user’s needs and desires.
We found that most caregivers are passionate about their work and truly enjoy doing what they do. They’re engaged in their patient’s development and progress, and their feelings often align with how the patient is doing. Many caregivers find most enjoyment during the interaction with patients or other caregivers. They find administrative tasks to be boring and frustrating, mainly because of it being tedious and sometimes difficult because of missing information in the electronic patient files for example.
This sprint was helpful for us to get a basic understanding of the caregivers, the organization, the treatment method ‘TBS’ and the patients. We put in a lot of time for researching and visualizing these aspects however this was essential for our project. We all agreed that we needed to get the most fundamental understanding first before we could move onto finding the root of the problem.
Sources
- De Boer, J., & Gerrits, J. (2007). Learning from Holland: the TBS system. Psychiatry, 6(11), 459–461. doi:10.1016/j.mppsy.2007.08.008
2. Oostvaarderskliniek, 2019, Werken, viewed 30 October 2019, https://www.oostvaarderskliniek.nl
