CDT second year student Bridget Ellis’ DASH study is looking for 14-18 year olds with a history of self harm to participate in workshops exploring their thoughts on technology and research. Here, she tells us more:

What’s the aim of the DASH study?

We are looking at Digital Technology, Adolescence and Self-Harm, which is where the DASH acronym comes from! Our aim is to help us understand how to design and use mobile technologies, like phones, tablets and smart-watches, in self-harm research. There are some exciting techniques that we think can help us to understand self-harm, but to make sure we maximise these benefits we want to collaborate with young people. We are hoping that through this collaboration we can hear how young people want to be asked about self-harm and how to design digital platforms specifically for research with young people.

How will you work with participants?

The study will involve co-design to collaborate with young people (aged 14-18). This means working with people who will use the completed product throughout the design process. Co-design is important to make sure that the product works for the people who would be using it.  

We will co-design a platform for Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA). EMA means answering questions about your thoughts and feelings, multiple times throughout the day. EMA helps to explore people’s experiences close to when they happen. We think EMA can improve our understanding of self-harm.  

We hope that working with young people to develop the design for an EMA tool will help future research into self-harm.

What exactly will be involved?

There will be 3 different online workshops each using a different co-design activity. We want to discuss your thoughts about phones, tablets and smartwatches and how they could be used in research. We will also present different scenarios and examples of digital platforms. We want to work together to understand how these should be designed. Participants will receive a £10 shopping voucher per session (via email), with an additional £10 voucher if all three sessions are completed.

Take part here.

If you have any questions please email dash-study@bristol.ac.uk

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