Teaching emotional literacy with tech
Facilitating healing for Canada’s young offenders
It happened when you were young. To this day, you regret it, and can’t quite say why it happened: did your emotions get the best of you? Did your rage, welling up beyond your control, cause you to do it? Whatever the case, in that haze of misty-eyed intensity, it happened. And you can’t go back.
It’s why you’re here, in a youth detention facility. In custody. Working through the consequences of the crime that came from that intense emotional place. Your probation officer has suggested it might be good for you to try this program called SNAP (Stop Now and Plan) to help work through those feelings that landed you here. And, well, frankly you have no choice. So you find yourself in a circle of your fellow detained peers, in a “workshop” hosted by some kind of facilitator. You’re giving her the side-eye. This isn’t your idea of a good time.
You’ve been given an iPod touch to hold — and no, you realize, after a quick attempt to override the settings, it still won’t let you get online. It’s locked into some kind of special program.
You’re being asked to watch an animation on-screen, and then respond to some question prompts. Sure, the iPod can’t get online, but at least they aren’t asking you to share about feelings in a group setting. Maybe this isn’t so bad.
Bit by bit, the facilitator is asking your group questions, drawing from the scene you just watched and the answers you and your peers typed into the iPods. It’s not long before you’re sucked into the conversation.
And it’s bringing back all those triggers — that heat in your face, that tension in your shoulders. You saw yourself in those animated scenes. You are hearing your own patterns and habits and reactions repeated back to you by the facilitator, though you’ve said nothing.
Yet this time, there’s a hint that hasn’t been there before: the sense there are solutions nearby. You’re ready to keep listening.
“You” are a composite of 1000+ youth participants across Canada who are participants in the SNAP program, created by the Child Development Institute. This iPod-powered program is a new adaptation of a longstanding initiative run in youth correctional facilities across Canada to help teach emotional awareness.
“We used to do it without the iPods,” explains Leena Augimeri, Director at the Child Development Institute. “In fact, this program has been running for 30 years now, long before any real hand-held technology was available. It’s been an incredible movement: an evidence-based way to help teach kids emotional awareness, meeting them exactly where they’re at.”
Leena explains that through the help of expert facilitators, the traditional SNAP program would ask participants to role-play scenarios of conflict, and then enter into a discussion about their choices and actions.
“As effective as the program has been — and it truly has — ” Leena explains, “sometimes role-playing isn’t very cool. And neither is talking about your feelings in front of a group. Especially if that group happens to be your fellow peers of young offenders. It can be hard for youth to open up.” It was this insight that sparked the CDI team to consider using technology to better facilitate the session.
Animated scenes custom-created by Domain7 to address true-to-life situations play on their devices. Afterwards, simple survey-style prompts ask participants to disclose — in a confidential and anonymous manner that is shared only with the facilitator’s device — their own responses to the questions. With this input, the facilitator is then able to lead a highly tuned-in discussion on what it means to manage your emotions in a conflict situation — without compromising the need to “save face” that can be so deeply ingrained in the program’s participants.
“It’s a fascinating use case,” says Leena. “Technology is so often blamed as a disconnector. And these kids, they’re used to being blamed as well. Now, it’s a technology tool that’s helping bringing greater connectedness and emotional awareness to these youth.”
The iPod-powered program has been running for four years now, building on the 30 years of SNAP’s offline success. At 27 sites across Canada, highly-trained facilitators are running sessions with troubled youth who would otherwise have very little access to tools and resources for building more emotional resilience.
“It’s a really simple method, at its heart,” explains Sarah Woods. “It was originally developed for kids as young as six to be able to understand: snap your fingers — SNAP — stop now and plan: Take a breath, think of all the possible options, and choose the best one. It’s all about helping kids build awareness of the exact moment where they are in an elevated emotional state, that that moment is when they have a choice in how to act.”
A simple concept, first delivered in group sessions by trained facilitators, then enabled by technology, is now turning into an evidence-based movement. New technology will soon be in place to capture session data so facilitators can evaluate the efficacy of their programs. This specific iteration was the first time specific focus was given to creating modules for indigenous youth. Next: plans for expansion include developing modules custom-created for young women.
“There are so few resources geared specifically to help the young women in our culture with the unique situations facing them,” says Margaret Walsh of CDI. “Yet the pressures are so significant. We are working hard to take the learnings from 30 years of SNAP, and gear it now towards the female-oriented issues of self-worth, body image, peer relationships and identity, to provide modern and relevant scenarios that females of all ages can connect with.”
The re-platforming for a module oriented to young women is being kicked off this fall, with the iPod app’s developers RedMane Technology Canada and FoxWise Technology working in conjunction with user experience and design contributions from Domain7 to put early thoughts together to guide the overall experience.
Early conversations are also taking place to explore how a technology-enabled emotional literacy program like SNAP could be deployed not just in the youth justice system — when the application is corrective — but also in a preventative approach.
Explore more of Domain7’s people-centric work here, and read more on our empathetic and collaborative approach.
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