EDC Experts Engage Community in Digital Wellbeing Innovation Workshop
In June, EDC convened Massachusetts students, parents, educators, and community members in a community-driven design workshop focused on cultivating youths’ sound tech habits and digital wellbeing. The event was part of both EDC’s MetroWest Foundation-funded MetroWest Digital Wellness Collaborative initiative and our national Healthy Digital Futures work.
EDC experts Shari Kessel Schneider, Athi Myint-U, Shai Fuxman, and Tori Todd guided workshop participants in co-designing promising, community-tailored approaches to promote youths’ balanced digital media use, mental health, and physical health.
Together, mixed-age groups of youth and adults explored current digital wellbeing challenges and drafted seven prototype solutions for their communities. These included a regional awareness campaign; peer mentoring to foster healthy technology use; and education and communication initiatives directed to parents, youth, and the community.
Participant Jaclyn C. Winer, Director of Social Work at Holliston Youth and Family Services said, “We are grateful for opportunities like this to learn from neighboring towns, share ideas, and continue growing as a team. We are excited to bring what we learned back to Holliston and continue the conversation about digital wellness for children, teens, and families.”
In the next phase of this work, our team will share workshop participants’ seven ideas with the MetroWest Digital Wellness Collaborative’s Steering Committee. The Steering Committee will review all ideas and select several to move into action. Then, over the next two years, Kessel Schneider, Myint-U, Fuxman, Todd, and colleagues will work with members of the Collaborative to turn the ideas into initiatives that can be piloted and scaled across and beyond MetroWest communities.
Throughout the work, EDC and our Collaborative partners will continue to engage educators, students, parents, and community members throughout the MetroWest region as co-creators and advisors.
We invite you to read an Edutopia article, Newsweek op-ed, Huff Post commentary, and recent article and report related to our Healthy Digital Futures work.
