OVERVIEW
Timeline: Spring 2018 (10 weeks)
Focus: Design research | Problem framing | Ideation | Prototyping | Storytelling
Collaborators: Robert Ward
Like many universities throughout the country, Penn is dealing with an alarming number of suicides amongst students. Fourteen students at the University of Pennsylvania have died by suicide since 2013. The university is working to provide more professional services and has recently launched a campaign for wellness. But, what else can be done? Beginning with this prompt, we dove into research, in attempt to understand this complex problem and culture at Penn. We prototyped several concepts based on our insights which culminated in an important takeaway for any future wellness or mental health projects targeting Penn students. Overall, this project was a great challenge and a tremendous learning experience.
DESIGN RESEARCH
In order to understand the complete scope and gain empathy, we engaged with events on campus and spoke to a wide variety of students and Penn faculty.
Influential thoughts expressed to us through this process:
INSIGHTS
After extensive analysis, discussion, and thinking we distilled three important insights.
There is a disconnect in communication and perception between students and Penn administration.
There is a lack of engagement surrounding mental health and getting help.
There is a stigma surrounding therapy and getting help.
Penn administration is taking certain actions that they can justify based on student feedback, but students are not understanding this or aware of it and are therefore frustrated with the administration's actions.
There actually are many mental health and wellness initiates currently being implemented on campus. However, students aren’t engaging with them, and therefore not benefitting from them.
Students commonly view therapy as a “treatment” that is only needed when “broken” or “damaged” rather than viewing it as something that can be beneficial on a regular basis, in a more proactive manner.
DESIGN CRITERIA & DIRECTION
We asked ourselves:
How might we make therapy and getting help seem more like exercise?
and
How might we improve and facilitate communication at Penn? (student-to-student and student-to-Penn administration)
We determined that successful solutions must focus on integration and communication.
SOLUTIONS
Coffee Sleeves & Doodles
Deliver subtle reminders that mental health is important in order to integrate into people’s everyday lives. Include some messages that faciliate action and some messages that make someone pause and reflect.
Mental Health Chat & Run
Integrate mental health into people’s everyday lives by incorporating discussion into physical exercise activity. Discuss “What’s stressing you out?” or “What do you wish Penn would do?” while running along side peers and trained peer counselors.
Penn Unmasked
2-way online communication platform to facilitate conversation amongst students and between students and Penn administration. Student volunteers can respond to students struggling with similar problems by sharing their own stories, creating connections, and providing support. Students can also “heart” public posts to demonstrate support, and Penn admin can respond to the most popular ones.
IMPLEMENTATION & REFLECTION
We prototyped these concepts in various capacities on campus: we tested coffee sleeves in a campus café, we put doodle sheets in academic buildings and libraries and began an Instagram account, and we created a Facebook event, inviting students to a group run. Attempts at these prototypes yielded interesting and important results. The biggest takeaway was that students are incredibly busy, and adding another commitment simply isn’t effective. These initiatives we prototyped weren’t very “successful” at engaging students because Penn students are “too busy” to take on more commitments, regardless of any potential benefit it might bring.
Ultimately, our goal was not for the specific concepts we generated to be implemented by Penn but rather, was for Penn to rethink integrating mental health into students’ lives and re-framing it to meet students where they are at, instead of adding one more thing to their to-do list or tightly packed Google calendar. This means that in the future, implementing any solution must be mindful of this and meet students where they are at in order to be successful. This likely means beginning to change the culture surrounding mental health and wellness, subtly, by facilitating conversations, transparency, and communication.