Dilico and Lakehead University team up to design app to support Indigenous youth

Lakehead University assistant professor Aislin Mushquash is collaborating with Dilico Anishinabek Family Care and Children’s Centre Thunder Bay to develop and pilot a new JoyPopTM app service for youth. – Photo supplied

THUNDER BAY — Dilico Anishinabek Family Care and Children’s Centre Thunder Bay are collaborating with Aislin Mushquash, assistant professor in the Department of Psychology at Lakehead University, to develop and pilot a new JoyPopTM app service. Mushquash and her research team recently published the results of a 28-day study of the JoyPopTM app, which was developed by a team at McMaster University, online .

“The app is designed to support youth in fostering their resilience,” Mushquash says. “The way it does that is by teaching youth to utilize or tap into their existing set of coping skills or to build new coping skills. In particular, we want to see youth building skills that help them to manage their emotions, tolerate any kind of the stress they have, but also create positive experiences throughout their day.”

Mushquash says the JoyPopTM app features activities such as breathing exercises and fun games to offer a distraction for the youth.

“There’s ways right within the app to connect with members of a youth support system so if they do need a bit of extra help, they can seek out additional support either through a mentor or an Elder or a counsellor or friend or family member,” Mushquash says. “There’s also helplines built right into the app so if they do need some 24/7 additional connection or support they can reach out to those connections right through the app.”

The 28-day study was done with more than 200 youth who were beginning their studies at Lakehead University.

“We know this can be a stressful time and requires a lot of adjustments, new classes, new settings, new peers,” Mushquash says. “The results are encouraging and support the JoyPopTM app as a tool that could be used by youth and young adults to improve their resilience and overall well-being.”

Mushquash says the collaboration with Dilico and Children’s Centre Thunder Bay will look at how the app could potentially be integrated into their services.

“We’re working with the organizations to determine what’s the best way to kind of roll this out,” Mushquash says. “And then we’re going to evaluate that similar to how we evaluated it with our youth at Lakehead — once we do implement a new service, we want to study to make sure that it is helpful and look at how it’s improving access to care or improving symptoms.”

Mushquash says the participants in the study found the JoyPopTM app gave them time to reflect on how they were feeling.

“They also found that it became kind of part of their daily routine,” Mushquash says. “By the end of the 28-day period, they found that they actually wanted to [use it], so they would wake up in the morning and find themselves wanting to log onto the app and wanting to do the breathing exercises and wanting to check in during the day and report on how they were feeling.”

Kristine Stasiuk, manager of counselling and clinical services at Dilico, says the JoyPopTM app promotes positive mental health and increases calming activities and coping skills through technology.

“It will help our First Nations [youth] who use technology who might not be able to come into the office for services,” Stasiuk says. “It’s more accessible for our clients. We’re looking forward to seeing the benefits for our [youth] for sure.”

Stasiuk says the JoyPopTM app service will be provided most likely to adolescents aged from 12-17.

“It’s a great opportunity — it’s more accessible for our youth,” Stasiuk says. “Our goal is to promote the resilience and increase our coping skills, especially during COVID-19 right now, so this is definitely an asset.”