Use of Youth-designed Board Game to express youths' concerns and voices towards group home care experiences

Abstract: In Hong Kong, out-of home care services have been developed from institution to small group home and foster care services since 1990s. Children and teenagers are removed from families due to multiple family... [ view full abstract ]

Abstract:
In Hong Kong, out-of home care services have been developed from institution to small group home and foster care services since 1990s. Children and teenagers are removed from families due to multiple family problems. They may need to stay in out-of-home care from their childhood to adolescent stage because of limited improvement in their family situations. However, due to the wide age range (aged 4 to 18) of children and limited staff in small group homes, most of the staff emphasize on children’s daily care and discipline. Behavioral management to children and teenagers is widely used. However, without adequate opportunities for negotiation, teenagers tend to have low participation in group home living. There are also limited opportunities for teenagers to voice out their experiences and concerns on their group living.

In response to this situation, “Youth-designed board game” was launched in a small group home with 7 teenagers aged from 9 to18 from July 2015 to March 2016. It aimed at supporting teenagers to share their experiences and concerns on their group home living, in order to enhance their self-confidence, empower them to advocate for improvement of service through sharing to all levels of staff of the organization. Two sets of board game were designed by teenagers with the themes as “Urge for more negotiation and decision making opportunities” and “Back home quickly”. The games were designed and printed in an attractive package and have fun to play. Players of the games include care staff and children. The teenagers presented their ideas and design in a conference, with participants of the children of other small group homes, the organization staff including the Chief Executive and other managerial staff, social workers and caring staff of small group homes. The teenagers also performed as trainers to teach all participants how to play the two sets of games. The games will be produced for more copies and the teenage designers will be invited to be trainers in other small group homes of the organization to teach players how to play and advocate their ideas through the games.

Qualitative feedback were collected from the participants of the conference and the teenage designers to evaluate the impact of the “Youth-designed board game programme”. The teenage designers shared that the design process was a very unique experience for them since they were able to share their experiences, feelings and concerns in an open and free platform. They stated the most important element was their voices being highly attended and respected, both in the group process and the conference. The findings showed that occupied negative emotions of the teenagers were released and hopes were enhanced after the group. Besides, self confidences of the teenagers were enhanced due to the successful production, conference presentation and appreciation from the staff and other children. We recommend that child care staff and organizations could create different platforms and adopt various means to listen to teenagers’ voices and empower them to participate in decision making in their daily living. Their voices in service development should be attended.