COVID-19 and Bridging the Social and Physical Gap: Dynamic Digital Resources to Meet the Mental Health Support Needs of Children, Youth, and Families

The COVID-19 pandemic has challenged us with social isolation, financial uncertainty, and daily life disruptions. Parents and children may be uniquely impacted as parents attempt to navigate the stressors of working from home, caring for children, and, potentially, caring for their elderly parents and other family members. Children and youth, in turn, are influenced by parental anxieties that may exacerbate the child’s/youth’s own mental health concerns. The Centre for Rural and Northern Health Research (CRaNHR) is teaming up with MLD Solutions and child/youth-serving organizations to convert static resources to a dynamic client experience using the Mozaik.Global platform. Mozaik.Global has a broad range of features to easily incorporate digital material, develop quizzes, add gaming features, etc., and record keystrokes, swipes, and clicks to build a rich and vibrant picture of the users’ engagement with the digital content. The team will examine how engagement with digital mental health content best meets the support needs of children, youth, and family members during the social restrictions imposed during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Faculty Supervisor:

Diana Urajnik

Student:

Samaneh Abedini Najafabadi

Partner:

MLD Solutions Inc.

Discipline:

Other

Sector:

Other

University:

Laurentian University