Embedded Files
Empathy
Empathy
We talked to stakeholders in the wellness and ODU counseling department.
To enable our empathy process we did rounds of surveys, talked to students and staff, and had multiple feedback sessions with key stakeholders.
Defining
Defining
Major themes developed from the empathy process included communication, knowledge about resources, and the ways in which stereotypes and historically entrenched struggles block success.
We discovered that students were unaware of the resources that were available to them on a large scale but especially when it comes to things relating to mental health along with being afraid or wary of speaking about their personal struggles. To this end, our challenge evolved to understanding the root of this problem.
Ideation
Ideation
After defining and refining our problem through multiple iterations of empathy, the team then came up with multiple ideas. To help students stop repressing their needs, we came up with the idea of a "catharsis forum" which would allow students to speak freely about their struggles.
Similarly, we also thought about the ways in which students feel as if they have no one to talk to and identified that other students and faculty are either not capable of properly handling student issues or generally reluctant to do.
To this end, we focused on advertising resources that are already available and training for students, faculty, and staff about these issues.
Protypying
Protypying
To develop our prototype we looked at what other universities have done in this area and then looked at the resources that the university was already employing.
To test our design, we talked to those who were already entrenched into the space that we wanted to innovate. Surveys recorded responses from students current and past expressing challenges faced as a minority student or observed of minority students.
Through numerous iterations, the Team discovered that ODU employed many services and programs for mental health that students had not been aware of, and the framework for what we wanted to do was already set. From there, it was all about getting in touch with the proper contacts.
Ultimately, the design team created a two-pronged approach to solving the challenge: See Something, Say Something and Stronger Together. Together, these two campaigns work to end the stigma, educate students and staff, and spread awareness of the programs available at ODU.
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