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April 16, 2020

Design Sprint

to address the fatigue and morale of

workers who support homeless youth

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Interested Partners

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Address the increased fatigue and morale of social workers and staff of the Star House whose work with homeless youth is affected by the pandemic.

Challenge

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Some key accelerators by the pandemic

Anxiety

Shift change for Staff.

Fear

Safety and security.

Life at risk situation.

Star House is closed from 11 am to 7pm – all staff had to adapt to new shifts and roles have been switched

Staff fear for their health and that of their families. They also worry about the increased number of youth in the street.

Stress

More younger children coming.

Increase in substance abuse.

The number of younger kids has increased due to the closure of schools. There is no longer truancy reporting. Additional anxiety caused by the pandemic has led to youths' increased abuse of substances and verbal violence.

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�Design Sprint

Methods

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Fact Finding

Challenge

>20

Insights

Formulation of problems & opportunities

Formulation of Solutions

Concept

formulation

6

Problem �statements

12

Ideas

6

Concepts

Interviews to staff, mental health social workers, leadership

Challenge map brainstorming session with 14 participants

Ideation session with 12 participants

6 drafted concepts to be developed

Concept

Definition and prototyping�

Design Sprint

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Understanding

April, 10th

Problem Definition

April, 11th

Ideation

April, 12th

Readout

April, 16th

Prototyping

TBD

We Are Here

Outcomes

Design Sprint Timeline

Five Needs

Six Challenge Statements

Six Concepts

Concepts selected

to prototype

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DAY 1 - Fact Finding

After completing eight interviews and desk research we build a stakeholder map and empathy map.

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DAY 2 - Formulating Problems and Opportunities

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DAY 3 -

Formulating

Solutions

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�Key Needs

Expressed

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to feel safe and secure

for stability

for a sense of control

HMW create a new sense of stability and mitigate fear, for both the Star House staff and homeless youth, during times of instability and ambiguity?

Key Needs

“Compensation for being in the front line and literally face-to face with a deadly disease and potentially bringing it home to my family”

“...Fear of infection, fear of closing, fear of layoffs...”

Problem Statement

Supporting Evidence

Staff and Youth

Solves the NEED

Target

It’s no surprise that I can safely say that this pandemic has basically pulled the rug out from everyone. For many there is no sense of stability or normalcy anymore and we find that this feeling compounds on our already vulnerable populations. So one of the major undercurrents we saw time and again in our interviews was the desperate need for both staff and youth to:�

feel safe and secure
To have a return towards stability
To feel in control of their lives and situations once more

As you can see we have a few quotes that serve to underscore the situation on the ground:

There is a need for “...Compensation for being on the front lines and literally face-to face with a deadly disease.” Worse, there is that constant nagging worry in the back of their minds that they have “...the potential to bring it home to their families.”

“...Fear of infection, fear of closing, fear of layoffs...”

So the problem statement we crafted based on this information is:

How might we create a new sense of stability and mitigate fear, for both the Star House staff and homeless youth, during times of instability and ambiguity?

It is good to keep in mind that we did not want these problem statements to be purely locked to the current Covid-19 crisis. We want to be sure that Star House will have a strong footing for any potential crisis by helping them forecast and prepare for the future.

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Staff and Youth

to provide youth emotional safety

for affection

HMW find new ways for the staff to communicate affection and promote emotional well being, when greeting and communicating with the youth, while complying with COVID-19 guidelines?

“I miss hugging the kids.”

“My willingness to give back during this time is important to me. I ultimately want to do my part for the youth at Star House.

Key Needs

Supporting Evidence

Solves the NEED

Target

Problem Statement

Another need we heard loud and clear during our Sprint was the need to provide youth with:

much needed emotional safety
to feel affection

The Covid crisis makes PDA and affirmations difficult for the Star House staff to perform. Once, warm greetings at the door from guardians the youth have learned to trust have instead changed overnight into a greeting that includes physical distance and the cold application of thermometers. ��You see, many youth do not understand or underestimate the threat that COVID-19 represents and so they do not understand the need for the change in behaviors displayed by staff whether it is the changing service hours to the constant wiping down of equipment and spaces. Understandably, the anxiety and stress levels that are observed by the staff have reached all new highs and they feel helpless to help their wards.

The team crafted the following problem statement with all of these staff anxieties in mind:

How might we find new ways for the staff to communicate affection and promote emotional well being, when greeting and communicating with the youth, while complying with COVID-19 guidelines?

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Staff

To be seen as

a whole person

with their own needs met

HMW provide support for the emotional well-being and mental health for the Star House staff, as part of strategic response plan?

“My willingness to give back during this time is important to me. I ultimately want to do my part for the youth at Star House. Tangible value would make this national crisis more bearable."

“Cleaning tasks seem tedious and I would rather focus on keeping workers busy in ways that improve the organization…”

Key Needs

Supporting Evidence

Target

Problem Statement

Solves the NEED

We also realized early on that it’s not only the youth who need assistance and emotional support right now. The staff also feel a great deal of anxiety about their personal lives and how well they are doing at their jobs. The Star House are doing the jobs they love to do. They would do it even if they weren’t being paid to do it...and right now the current Crisis is keeping them from doing their job. Many of them feel as though they are failing the youth or the team by staying at home to protect their families or having their hands tied due to too little resources.

It became clear that the team also had to address the need for staff:

To be seen as a whole person with their own needs met

You see, there is precious little job satisfaction and that the people that the staff are serving are okay. This last point is important to touch on here briefly as it turns out that youth are starting to disappear on the streets. This is partially due to the schools no longer being in session which means truancy and reporting for missing youths is no longer mandatory. The results are that once familiar faces at Star House have been absent and are being missed with increasing anxiety by the staff.

All of these factors and more prompted the team to look into the challenge of:

How might we provide support for the emotional well-being and mental health for the Star House staff, as part of a strategic response plan?

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Star House

To use what we have

learned to plan for

future uncertainties

HMW use what we learn during the pandemic to make Star House even stronger in the future?

“With my new work hours it’s hard for me to sleep and when I’m not at work or sleep my time is consumed with watching the news or reading the latest on Covid-19”

“I experience anxiety when leaving my home with all that’s going on in our country at this time”

Key Needs

Supporting Evidence

Solves the NEED

Target

Problem Statement

So here we touch on the need for practical solutions for present problems while keeping an eye towards futurism by planning for what comes after. Both staff and leadership expressed a deep need to use what they learn during this crisis to help them:

to plan for future uncertainties

The staff at Star House are not content to just let things be. Many of them are consumed by news coming in and reports from the youth and from people who are on the sharp end of this crisis. Many of them are making connections and trying to solutionize, just like last weekend’s design sprint. We all know though that it is very difficult to sit back and think about what worked in the heat of the moment. It is even harder to do so when it is a month or a year after the fact. Conversations naturally touched on the need for building toolkits and including WFH staff as a way to record measures that work and measures that don’t. There were even conversational topics that revolved around the potential to bring together an internal team to review, document, and implement measures in a consistent way.

So naturally, the team felt that the following problem statement seemed fitting to ask:

HMW use what we learn during the pandemic to make Star House even stronger in the future?

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Staff

To feel recognized

and respected for working

in a more stressful environment

HMW appreciate and celebrate workers accomplishments and bravery in new ways while complying with the new normal?

“There is a need of raising morale in the staff”

“Our only options are to show up or to quit and file for unemployment. I'm worried that my job might not be guaranteed, if I file for unemployment. "

Key Needs

Supporting Evidence

Solves the NEED

Target

Problem Statement

That the staff’s morale is reaching all time lows is a message we have been touching on during this conversation a lot. The frontline staff in particular feel the need:

To feel recognized
and respected for working in a more stressful environment

The source of this need is rooted in the confluence of all the previous issues. As we saw, a lot of employees do not feel like their jobs are guaranteed or that the risks they are taking are being properly rewarded. They don’t feel like the jobs they are doing now, such as cleaning or taking temperatures, are as rewarding to do. They don’t feel like there is a clear plan of action and so the environment is more stress inducing than normal. Worse, their emotional needs are not being met to the same levels as before nor is it, more importantly to them, for the youth they are in charge of. We are honestly seeing this trend need across all sections of society these days where essential workers feel underappreciated and overworked.

So....

How might we appreciate and celebrate workers' accomplishments and bravery in new ways while complying with the new normal?

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Staff

To have accurate up-to-date information & transparent communication

HMW provide a singular and central source of information, that Star House can access easily, with accurate information and needed updates so staff understand the need for changes and feel supported?

"We need better communication between shifts as it relates to COVID-19 through the communication log and shift meetings”

“Biggest challenge is getting accurate information to people with so many things rapidly changing”

Key Needs

Supporting Evidence

Solves the NEED

Target

Problem Statement

The last need I will touch on before handing it over to Bre and Andrea is perhaps the one that we can all commiserate. It is something we have all dealt with one way or another and the current pandemic has only exacerbated issues to an even higher degree. The Star House staff both on the front lines and at home or in the office expressed a deep need for:

Having accurate up-to-date information & transparent communication

Staff are dealing with daily updates on policy changes dealing with COVID-19. There are also conditions that are cropping up on the ground that are completely unexpected, such as the truancy and staffing issues that were touched upon in previous slides. It will reduce a lot of unnecessary stress and anxiety if there was information being relayed back to a central source of information about what’s changed or is in the process of changing on the front line. That central source could then relay back support or advisory notes about what a shift might expect during the day. Planning the needs of the youth and staff and steering the whole community through these troubling times becomes a lot easier with a clear plan of action laid out from leadership. Stress and anxiety can also be alleviated dramatically with simple truth telling and stating explicitly why policies are changing.

So….

How might we provide a singular and central source of information, that Star House can access easily, with accurate information and needed updates so staff understand the need for changes and feel supported?

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�Areas of

Opportunity

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Emotional

Spaces

Targeted �Activities

Shared Purpose

Areas of Opportunity

Frontline

Community

Wearable

Hugs

Strategic

Resiliency^™

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Curate a set of quick and effective activities that are helpful for both staff and youth as part of a strategic response plan.

Targeted Activities

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“...there should be more fun and engaging activities for youth, and all those left to come in daily on the frontline.”

“How can we do our best to keep encouraging [youth] that we're doing the best that we can for them? That's where it's getting hard for us.”

How might it work?

A collection of activities used to lift morale, prompt inclusion, build self-confidence, create focus, nurture camaraderie, and affirm identity. Use them at the beginning of a session, class, or during transitions.

�Content can be in print/digital. It can be stored on the cloud, or emailed.

Targeted Activities�between staff and youth

Talking points:

Opportunity space revolves around creating more intentional opportunities for staff to connect to youth
Right now youth are feeling overwhelmed, unsure, maybe even unmotivated. Staff are passionate about helping these kids and a toolkit of targeted activities would enable staff to maintain those deep connections.

Create lists of self-care activities to do on own and with youth.

Look for resources in Columbus. Crowdsourcing of what works and what doesn’t work.

If built in 2 days�Form ad hoc committee who will send out an email to everyone to supply their favorite activities. ��

If built in 2 months

For start-up committee who will send out an email to everyone to supply their favorite activities. Then redesign/reformat for uniformity and maintain annual versions in both print and online. Give credit to authors.

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Give youth and staff a way to share emotional space and anonymously share where the emotional state of the group is.

Emotional Spaces

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“My heart goes out to the youth because the city is shut down and they have nowhere to go.”

“I miss finding ways to help them grow... I've had a lot of them come that are concerned and scared...it's really hard to see them already struggling and then this on top of it.”

How might it work?

Youth sign-in with their emotional space which is shared with certified staff who can check in and ask indirect questions to help get to the core of that feeling.

These emotions are also displayed (anonymously) in the house so that everyone present can gauge the emotional space of the group. Based on the emotional space, discussion prompts are posted to probe further into these emotions.

Emotional Spaces �between youth and staff

This opportunity space is similar in that it addresses the relationships between youth and staff, but this concept is geared solely towards the emotional space of the group.
Some of the staff we interviewed expressed how difficult it was seeing an already vulnerable population of individuals have their ambitions halted. For example, one girl had just gotten a job and was getting ready to start when the stay-at-home order was put in place.
This concept draws attention to the importance of our emotional states right now and would encourage youth and staff to become aware the felt mental state and possibly have opportunities to address it together

Youth are greeted and sign-in with their emotional space which is shared with certified staff who can check in and ask indirect questions to help get to the core of that feeling. These emotions are also displayed (anonymously) in the house so that everyone present can gauge the emotional space of the group. Based on the emotional space, discussion prompts are posted to probe further into these emotions.

If built in 2 days

Cut-outs of different emotions (happy, sad, angry, fearful, etc.) are available when youth arrive and each youth selects a cut out. Name goes on back of cut out if youth wants to be met with individually to talk about emotional space. These emoticon cutouts are posted on a bulletin board throughout the day so everyone in the space can gauge the emotional space felt and staff can then use that to create discussion questions to talk about.

If built in 2 months

A website/app where youth can report their emotions x times a day.

Weight it so more recent emotions have more value/weight. Group them by similarity. Staff can see the emotions of the house at a glance.

�Add metrics to store the history, so they can play on fast forward and see the 'emotion map' evolve.Also use this to see if 'interventions' or real world events have any effect.Could also have a separate 'map' for the staff, or include their emotions on the main map with an outline or something like that to distinguish their feelings from the youth.

Perhaps allow youths to opt-in to a certain staff member or mentor being able to see their individual emotions as they put them in / a chart of them over time.��Paul from our session has experience building a similar application digitally. We should contact hi to help write this section!

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Adapt from Strategic Foresight a scalable methodology and practice for developing durable solutions

within vulnerable populations.

Strategic Resiliency™

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“In the long term staff want to know why things change, always start with why and be empathetic to their whole person needs, being transparent allows for lower anxiety levels”

How might it work?

Star House could become known for developing Strategic Resiliency™: a scalable methodology and practice of strategic foresight for developing durable solutions within vulnerable populations.

Strategic Resiliency^TM�between staff and youth

This approach is often used in the corporate world to build durable solutions in uncertain future situations. This could be an opportunity for Star House to become the thought leaders on how these methods can be adapted to build a resilient strategy for vulnerable populations.

How might work?

Develop a Star House Strategic Foresight Capacity involving quarterly scenario building, with all of the requisite technologies and training needed for supporting staff and youth.

If built in 2 days

Smaller, less thought out kits that could be developed out more in the future - since short timeframe utilize the resources we currently have. Having a Strategic Foresight Coach come in and listen to the unique needs of the organization and move forward from there.

If built in 2 months

Work with certified Strategic Foresight coach to co-create the framework including cloud technologies. Write a development grant for building a prototype. Draft a road map for development and implementation.

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A communication space that allows work from home staff to become as equally important and relevant as the front line staff as they support those in need.

Shared Purpose

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“…because certain shifts will have different rules… [the youth will] play mom versus dad and youth will come up to you ‘well they said on third shift that we could do it.”

"Some office staff get to sit at home and keep themselves and their families safe as the front line staff is expected to gamble with our lives and our families' lives.”

How might it work?

A hotline setup that allows work from home staff to become as equally important/relevant as the front line staff as they support those in need with a virtual database of information and affirmations on the internal tv channel.The service can be text or phone call away.

Shared purpose �between frontline staff, at home staff and youth

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Establish a community for frontline workers that enables conversation through pairing people with common concerns. Provide support staff trained to help people with these concerns.

Frontline Community

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“Fear of infection, fear of closing, fear of layoffs”

“Our only options are to show up or to quit and file for unemployment. I'm worried that my job might not be guaranteed, if I file for unemployment.”

How might it work?

If different frontline workers (from different social actions: healthcare members, firefighters) would also be include and share how different profiles face similar situations. Support buddies 24/7

Frontline Community

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Creating a wearable that produces a physical representation of a “hug feeling”.

Wearable Hugs

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“I miss hugging the kids”

“We have been cutting hugs out”

How might it work?

A wearable technology vest that provides customizable deep touch pressure hugs that help calm and comfort people who are anxious or stressed, improving their coping ability and attentiveness.

Wearable Hugs�

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�Next

Steps

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Thank You

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Visual Resources

Our Presentation Today

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Appendix:

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Key Needs Expressed

The need to feel safe and secure

The need of protection and reassuring people that they are protected.
Being cared and taking care: issues of adaptability, autonomy, solidarity.
Having insurance, savings, social security, and a health system.
Having family. Having rights and work.
Issues of prevention and cooperation.
Asking for help.
Interactions with the living space, social environment, dwelling.

“If I had a choice I would work from home and stay inside until the pandemic is clear.”

“Fear of infection, fear of closing, fear of layoffs”

"Some office staff get to sit at home and keep themselves and their families safe as the front line staff is expected to gamble with our lives and our families' lives.”

“Our only options are to show up or to quit and file for unemployment. I'm worried that my job might not be guaranteed, if I file for unemployment."

“Compensation for being in the front line and literally face-to face with a deadly disease and potentially bringing it home to my family”

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Key Needs Expressed

The need of affection

The need for emotional support.
Share the thoughts about the situation, express emotions
Seeing appreciation, solidarity, respect, tolerance, and generosity.
Regain self-esteem, passion, and sense of humor
Need to feel closer, touch, and more human: Friendship, partnership, �relationships with nature

“My willingness to give back during this time is important to me. I ultimately want to do my part for the youth at Star House. Tangible Value would make this national crisis more bearable."

“I miss hugging the kids”

“There is a need of raising morale in the staff”

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Key Needs Expressed

The need of participation

Need to feel job satisfaction, that the people I serve are ok.
Need to be heard, to express opinions
Need to feel supported
Need to have duties and responsibilities but, also, privileges
Community responses

“My heart goes out to the youth because the City is shut down and they have nowhere to go.”

“Cleaning tasks seem tedious and I would rather focus on keeping workers busy in ways that improve the organization - basic cleaning of handles/etc is essential during the crisis but other tasks provided could be done once a week or so and then focus the other hours on improving Star House.”

“...there should be more Fun and Engaging activities for youth, and all those left to come in daily on the front line.”

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Key Needs Expressed

The need to cope with changes and different challenges, �the need to reduce anxiety.

Need to deal with younger kids.
Changes in work schedule.
Changes in protocols (thermometer as the first greeting to new coming youth)
Need to reduce anxiety. Need to decompress, to feel stable.
Need to rest.

“I experience anxiety when leaving my home with all that’s going on in our country at this time”

“With my new work hours it’s hard for me to sleep and when I’m not at work or sleep my time is consumed with watching the news or reading the latest on Covid-19”

“Things are changing every day which makes anxiety high with little normal social outlets”

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Key Needs Expressed

The need of a sense of control

Need to feel informed
Up to date information regarding current situation and how it affects me
Need a clear road map
Need to see the light and the end of the tunnel.
Need clear communication on the daily changing rules for COVID

"We need better communication between shifts as it relates to COVID-19 through the communication log and shift meetings”

“Biggest challenge is getting accurate information to people with so many things rapidly changing”