Image Credit : The Portable Design Team
Project Overview
Portable collaborated with the NSW Department of Education and primary school communities across the state to create an engaging and comprehensive set of materials that promotes anxiety literacy among students, caregivers, and educators.
The NSW Department of Education initiated a project to address the increasing prevalence of anxiety among primary school students, which was exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.
This project aimed to create a universal program that could equip primary school communities with the tools to understand and manage anxiety, particularly among young children.
Before engaging with Portable, the Department conducted a comprehensive discovery phase to understand anxiety in primary school settings. Our engagement was built upon this groundwork, allowing us to tailor our approach to the nuances uncovered during the discovery phase.
We produced several key recommendations across three strategic horizons to create the conditions for the successful future adoption of these materials across all primary schools in NSW.
Project Commissioner
Project Creator
Team
Olivia Gregory, Senior Producer
Adam Corcoran, Principal Design Strategist
Shoni Ellis, Senior Content Strategist
Belinda Donald - Principal Design Strategist
Ash Colcott, Experience Designer
Willhemina Wahlin, Senior Design Strategist
Jen Yani, Senior Communication Designer
Project Brief
As part of this engagement with the NSW Department of Education, Portable was asked to:
1. Address universal feelings of worry, fear, and nervousness in children that can hinder their learning.
For and with…
2. Primary school students, their parents, caregivers, educators and support staff members across New South Wales.
Through…
3. The building of a common language and shared understanding around the concepts of anxiety, regulation, and dysregulation in children.
By…
4. Following a student-centred approach to developing engaging, comprehensive, and flexible anxiety literacy materials.
So that...
5. The materials could go on to be piloted in 20-30 NSW public schools, primarily in a diverse range of communities with unique needs and requirements.
To...
6. Empower a generation of primary school students open to discussing, learning, and managing anxiety.
Project Innovation/Need
Our top priority was the safety of all participants, and we implemented universal design principles in all our activities and outputs. We aimed to create safe and respectful environments where diverse voices could be heard without fear of harm.
Our approach to universal design focused on simplicity and accessibility, ensuring that people with different developmental levels could easily engage with the content we created.
From Discovery to Experimentation:
We centered our initial engagements around clinically informed play-based activities and open-ended discussions. These activities helped us understand audiences' current anxiety literacy levels and what resonated best.
From Experimentation to Prototyping:
We combined the findings of our initial experiments with identified clinical frameworks to drive the initial design and content prototypes for the various audiences. The initial prototypes focused on three approaches to building anxiety literacy.
From Prototyping to Testing:
We took the three prototype approaches back into schools for testing and iteration directly with students, educators, and caregivers. We established key testing criteria and encouraged stakeholders to provide ‘frank and fearless’ feedback to the team.
From Testing to Solutions:
Dedicated design sprints between engagements allowed the team to develop and test the content and designs with members of the project’s Advisory Group. The materials quickly emerged into a comprehensive suite suitable to the needs of the audiences we engaged.
Design Challenge
The problem identified through the discovery phase of the project was that there is no shared understanding of anxiety among children, caregivers, and school staff, which is hindering efforts to manage this issue.
The project aimed to fill this critical gap by developing a comprehensive suite of resources to support children, caregivers, and school staff to understand better and manage anxiety that was blocking learning.
The desired outcomes included developing materials to help build anxiety literacy, enhance resilience, and empower students to co-regulate with supportive adults and self-regulate to manage their anxiety effectively.
Resources were developed to be used at school and home with the children's and supportive adults' participation.
The challenge being addressed was complex, stemming from the need to accommodate a wide range of audiences with differing needs and preferences, including diverse geographies and cultural and socio-economic backgrounds across the state.
The Portable team has extensive experience ensuring safe and ethical interactions in complex environments.
Our approach focused on combining the expertise of clinical and educational experts with the tacit wisdom discovered within each school community.
We believe that the best solutions emerge in complex systems through experimentation and continuous learning rather than adherence to a rigid, preconceived plan.
To complement our established human-centered design methods, we embraced emergent practices that emphasized experimentation, learning, and adaptability while remaining sensitive to each unique context and situation we encountered.
Effectiveness
Our collaborative efforts created a dynamic suite of anxiety literacy materials tailored for primary school communities.
These materials represent a significant leap forward in promoting emotional well-being and anxiety resilience among students, educators, and caregivers.
The suite comprises booklets and worksheets for students, classroom and home posters, background information for supportive adults, and versatile assets for educators.
The content is comprehensive and flexible, ensuring accessibility for diverse audiences with varying literacy levels and experiences. Including a relatable character, Bean, adds a personal touch to the materials, serving as a guide and fostering connections, particularly with students with unique learning and developmental needs.
We produced several key recommendations across three strategic horizons to create the conditions for the successful future adoption of these materials across all primary schools in NSW:
1. Supporting the program's pilot phase with recommendations for the immediate future of the pilot program and evaluation, emphasizing supporting communities of practice and meaningful communication of the program.
2. Supporting the program's long-term future with recommendations for the long-term future of the program, focused on integration with existing initiatives, expanding the reach of the materials, and enhancing the program's digital presence.
3. Enhancing the broader well-being program ecosystem by connecting and integrating components, initiatives, and programs within and across state government departments.
Acknowledging the uniqueness of every community, we express optimism for the future adoption of the materials contributing to a generation of emotionally resilient individuals.
Graphic Design - Publication
This award celebrates creative and innovative design in the traditional or digital visual representation of ideas and messages. Consideration given to clarity of communication and the matching of information style to audience register.
More Details