From role-play to situated feedback: re-envisioning child mental health promotion interventions with digital technology

该研究金的目的是审查新兴技术如何从根本上重新设想儿童心理健康方面现有预防干预措施的概念模式和实施机制。需要这样一种创新的方法来解决英国和世界各地面临的前所未有的精神健康治疗缺口：超过十分之一的儿童和年轻人患有临床可诊断的精神健康障碍，但只有30%的人获得了适当的干预，其中不到一半的人通过治疗得到了改善。心理健康促进干预措施被视为解决这些问题的原则性方法之一：通过为高危人群和普通人群制定关键保护因素(如情绪调节或育儿技术)，此类干预措施可以改善幸福感，减少精神障碍的发生率。然而，即使是最有效的方案也仍然依赖于60年代以来可用的面对面交付技术和干预机制，因此缺乏可扩展的机制来在需要和正在发展的保护能力的日常环境中支持儿童。研究金研究议程提出的核心愿景是，数字技术可以导致完全融入目标人群生活的全新预防干预模式，从而满足情景学习支持的需求。然而，除了PI的试点工作之外，人机界面和预防科学领域甚至对提供这种情景干预所必需的基本研究问题缺乏基本的了解：例如，完全不清楚如何设计技术，围绕保护能力(技术RQ)为儿童及其成年人提供有用的情景支持，如何以心理有效的方式做到这一点(心理RQ)，以及如何设计对用户有吸引力并满足其直接需求的干预措施(社会-技术RQ)。该奖学金接受了这些挑战，并制定了一个雄心勃勃的工作计划，旨在从技术、心理学理论和以人为中心的设计的交叉点开始揭示这些更广泛的问题。我们针对这种高度跨学科的议程，以具体的案例研究为基础，以儿童心理健康的基本保护因素为目标-情绪调节和积极的育儿-同时涵盖上述所有问题。然后，案例研究干预措施不仅可以作为如何开发(并被证明是有效的)情境干预措施的概念证明的典范，而且也是推断可推广到其他人群和保护因素的心理机制和设计模式的第一步。通过专注于精心挑选的案例研究--辅以覆盖KCL、牛津、斯坦福、哈佛、西北大学和密歇根大学等地的强大的跨学科导师网络--其目标不仅是创建可大规模部署的有效干预措施，而且还影响更广泛的研究社区，并响应英国和欧盟的政策呼吁，为精神健康促进提供新的方法。该奖学金将极大地促进派的个人和职业发展。除了实现一个真正的跨学科工作的完整周期，这一工作传统上跨越一系列UKRI小组和认识论承诺，研究员结构还将促进跨越全球一系列领先研究中心的学术和临床伙伴关系网络，为PI未来几年的跨学科思维领导奠定基础。这些措施将包括在牛津大学的长期居留；以及密切合作和多次访问美国的导师(哈佛大学、斯坦福大学、密歇根大学、西北大学)。

The aims of the fellowship are to examine how emerging technologies can fundamentally re-envision the conceptual models and mechanisms-of-delivery for existing prevention interventions in the context of child mental health. Such an innovative approach is needed to address the unprecedented mental health treatment gap faced across the UK and worldwide: more than 1 in 10 children and young people have a clinically diagnosable mental health disorder, yet only 30% have had access to appropriate intervention, and less than half of these improve from the treatment. Mental health promotion interventions are seen as one of the principled ways of addressing these issues: by developing key protective factors (such as emotion regulation or parenting techniques) for both at-risk and general populations, such interventions can improve wellbeing and reduce the incidence of mental disorders. However, even the most effective programmes are still dependent on in-person delivery techniques and intervention mechanisms available since the 60s, thus lacking scalable mechanisms to support children in the everyday settings where protective competencies are needed, and being developed. The core vision proposed by the fellowship research agenda is that digital technologies can lead to entirely new model of prevention interventions that are fully incorporated into the lives of target populations, thus addressing the need for situated learning support. However, beyond PI's pilot work, HCI and Prevention Science fields lack even a basic understanding of the fundamental research questions necessary to deliver such situated interventions: it is not at all clear, for example, how to design technologies that provide useful contextualised support for children and their adults around protective competencies (technical RQs), how to do so in a psychologically effective way (psychological RQs), and how to design interventions that are engaging for users and are addressing their immediate needs (socio-technical RQs). The fellowship takes up these challenges and lays out an ambitious programme of work designed to start unpacking these broader issues at the intersection of technology, psychological theory, and human-centred design. We address such highly interdisciplinary agenda by grounding the work in specific case studies that target fundamental protective factors for child mental health --- emotion regulation and positive parenting --- while encompassing all of the issues outlined above. The case study interventions then serve not only as exemplar proof-of-concept of how situated interventions can be developed (and shown to be efficacious), but also as initial steps towards extrapolating the psychological mechanisms and design patterns that are generalisable to other populations and protective factors. By focusing on carefully selected case studies---complemented with a strong interdisciplinary mentorship network across KCL, Oxford, Stanford, Harvard, Northwestern U, and U of Michigan, among others--- the ambition is to not only create effective interventions that can be deployed at scale, but also influence the wider research communities, and contribute to the UK and EU policy calls to deliver new approaches for mental health promotion. PI's personal and career growth will be substantially boosted by the fellowship. Beyond enabling a full cycle of truly interdisciplinary work, which would traditionally span a range of UKRI panels and epistemological commitments, the fellowship structure will facilitate a network of academic and clinical partnerships across a range of leading research centres worldwide, developing the basis for PI's interdisciplinary thought leadership for years to come. These will include, among others, long-term residency at Oxford; as well as close collaboration and repeated visits to US-based mentors (Harvard, Stanford, University of Michigan, Northwestern University).