LifeCity

Using an app to make difficult conversations go smoother may sound contradictory. Nevertheless, it appears that the conversation tool that HOGENT researchers have developed for application in youth care has great added value.

FAITH, which stands for 'Facilitating IT in individual counseling conversations in youth Help', is a practice-oriented scientific study that examines how technology can contribute to motivating children to enter into conversation and to make difficult conversations in youth care go more smoothly. Because the app stores data, it can also contribute to the continuity of the assistance. If a child goes to another institution or is assigned a different care provider, the information flow is not always optimal. The app also offers an answer to that.

Based on this problem, HOGENT colleagues from Applied Informatics, in collaboration with colleagues from Orthopedagogy and with communication agency Characters, developed a conversation tool in the form of an app for tablet (although other applications may also be possible at a later stage). The app helps children aged 6 to 12 to express their concerns and how they feel. After all, this is sometimes difficult in a direct conversation with the care provider.

The app does not replace those conversations with the care provider, but lowers the threshold for open dialogue. And this has various reasons, illustrates Joke De Wilde, who is the supervisor of the research: “First of all, not all children, especially if they grow up in a troubled situation, are motivated to start a conversation. Classic counseling conversations are face-to-face and that is often confronting for a child. Partly because of this, they are sometimes reluctant to tell what is really going on. With the app, the child does not have to look at the supervisor, but together they concentrate on the screen. And through that screen, the child can name things more easily. It's like a crowbar. The animation of the app and the digital context that today's children are very familiar with ensure that they enjoy such a counseling conversation much more."

The app itself, called LifeCity, depicts a city in which the child can move through a self-chosen avatar. For example, there is a skyscraper where the child can display his goals, a cinema where he can tell his life story, a park where he can reflect on the feelings he is struggling with, etc.

An additional advantage is that the app puts the control of the conversation in the hands of the children. They help determine what they want to talk about and can indicate this via the tablet. They also have control over how they want to make something clear: the app allows, for example, to make a drawing or to record something.

For example, if a child has had a difficult day at school and therefore behaves aggressively in the community, the app can be an outlet to express or visualize the emotions of that moment and thus take away some of the tension.

You can register your organization here: https://lifecity.be