Business and Design Thinking
Social Navigation for Youth Refugees
Exploring research methods to design a web application that helps navigate social systems and mental health.
Services
YEAR
POTeNTIAL
client
Secondary Research | Research METHODOLOGIES | QUALITATIVE RESEARCH | Business DesigN | Business ModeLS DATA ANALYSIS | Stakeholder Needs | STakeholder Mapping | USER EXPERIENCE DesigN | STAKEHOLDER INTERVIEWS | CULTURAL PROBE | EXPERIENCE MAPPING | REPORT WRITING | REPORT DESIGN |
2022
IMMIGRATION REFUGEES AND CITIZENSHIP CANADA (IRCC)
Services
YEAR
POTENTIAL
Client
Secondary Research | Research METHODOLOGIES | QUALITATIVE RESEARCH | Business DesigN | Business ModeLS DATA ANALYSIS | Stakeholder Needs | STakeholder Mapping | USER EXPERIENCE DesigN | STAKEHOLDER INTERVIEWS | CULTURAL PROBE | EXPERIENCE MAPPING | REPORT WRITING | REPORT DESIGN |
2022
IMMIGRATION REFUGEES and CITIZENSHIP CANADA (IRCC)
Services
YEAR
Research METHODOLOGIES | QUALITATIVE RESEARCH | Business DesigN | Business ModeLS | DATA ANALYSIS | Stakeholder Needs | STakeholder Mapping | USER EXPERIENCE DesigN | STAKEHOLDER INTERVIEWS | CULTURAL PROBE | EXPERIENCE MAPPING | REPORT WRITING
2022
How do the barriers of inclusion affect how refugee youth (Grade 9-12) navigate within a social system?
This research explores how refugee youth navigate their social systems as they transition to life in Canada. Growing up as a refugee often means facing violence, loss, and uncertainty while trying to build a future in a new country. During adolescence, these challenges can heighten confusion about identity and belonging. Schools and broader social systems are the first institutions shaping their experience, yet integration difficulties often begin early. The Canadian school system places children in age-based grades regardless of prior education, leaving many parents worried their children are set up for academic failure.
SITUATION
Refugee youth (Grades 9–12) face unique challenges when resettling in Canada, including navigating a new educational system, coping with traumatic past experiences, and building a sense of identity and belonging. The Canadian school system places children in age-appropriate grades regardless of prior education, leading to academic and social struggles. This gap, combined with language barriers, cultural differences, and mental health challenges, often leaves refugee youth feeling excluded, misunderstood, and at risk of poor long-term outcomes.
TASK
The objective was to explore how refugee youth navigate social systems and identify opportunities to foster integration, improve mental well-being, and create supportive pathways for growth. Specifically, we sought to:
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Understand refugee youths’ lived experiences through qualitative research.
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Map their social navigation journeys and pinpoint systemic barriers.
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Co-create a solution that builds belonging, supports mental health, and promotes empowerment, while being culturally relevant and practical for integration into schools.
WHY REFUGEE YOUTH?
Seldom consulted, frequently overlooked, and often unable to fully participate in decision-making. The talents, energy, and potential of refugee youth remain largely untapped.
Refugee youth want the same things young people everywhere want: to be consulted, to be listened to, to contribute, to engage, and to be part of solutions. They want opportunities, education, employment, and inclusion.
ACTION
We applied Design Thinking and a human-centered approach to gather insights and ideate solutions:
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Research & Cultural Probe Design:
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Developed screening questionnaires to gather demographic and contextual data.
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Created two card-based cultural probe games (for youth and parents) to allow open sharing of experiences, aspirations, and challenges.
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Conducted semi-structured interviews and participant observation with refugee youth, parents, and educational professionals.
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Synthesis & Mapping:
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Built experience maps to visualize pain points, emotional states, and opportunities across the integration journey.
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Used stakeholder mapping to uncover key influencers and systemic gaps in support.
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Solution Development:
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Proposed Bloom & Me — an innovation integrating biometric smartwatches with the existing CBT-based Bloom therapy app.
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Designed a culturally inclusive interface allowing youth to log emotions via emoticons and receive tailored mental health interventions (music, therapy sessions, language-translated content).
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Recommended partnership with Bloom to develop culturally specific therapy content and recruit diverse therapists to increase trust and engagement.
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Embedded the solution within the school system to ensure access and reduce stigma.
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QUALITATIVE RESEARCH METHOD:
CULTURAL PROBE
Given the sensitivity of working with refugee youth, we chose cultural probes as our primary research method to gather deeper, more authentic insights. Traditional interviews can feel formal, distancing, or intimidating, especially for youth and parents navigating new environments. We wanted participants to feel free to share their experiences in a more personal and creative way — without the constant presence of a researcher.
Cultural probes allowed us to do exactly that. These were individual packages containing mixed-media tools designed to help participants document their daily lives, thoughts, and feelings at their own pace. This approach not only encouraged honest and unfiltered responses but also gave participants agency in shaping the data we collected. As a result, our design solutions were rooted not just in best practices but in the lived realities and cultural contexts of the youth we aimed to support.
The cultural probes served two key purposes:
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Interview Preparation: They engaged participants’ imagination, provided prompts for discussion, and helped bridge the gap between researcher and participant.
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Complementary Data Collection: They offered fragmentary, open-ended data that reflected the research themes, providing background and alternative ways for participants to express their experiences. Unlike interviews, the probes included ambiguous, provocative questions designed to inspire unexpected insights. Together, the probes and interviews complemented each other without being repetitive.
PROBLEM
STATEMENT
How might we identify opportunities to meaningfully integrate their culture and their challenges with the present and future realities of Canada to enhance their growth and foster mental well-being?
EXPERIENCE MAPPING
Experience mapping allowed us to visualize the refugee youth journey, uncovering pain points, emotions, and opportunities across their integration process. This method helped build empathy among stakeholders by showing the challenges youth face in education and social systems.
It also aligned the team around a shared understanding of needs, enabling us to co-create an innovative solution that supports refugee youth in navigating the Canadian school system with greater confidence and belonging.
The world community must uphold its collective responsibility… We risk losing yet another generation of children to illiteracy, ignorance, poverty, and the need to turn toward desperate and extreme solutions to meet their basic need.
- Dr. Mary Mendenhall, Teachers College Columbia University
HIERARCHY MATRIX
When examining the Stakeholder Matrix and the complex relationships between different needs and stakeholders several opportunities were identified in the context of refugee youth and the educational system.
RESULT
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Delivered a comprehensive research report that identified the major systemic barriers refugee youth face and provided strategic recommendations for schools and policymakers.
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Developed a conceptual prototype of the wearable mental health support system that merges technology, therapy, and cultural sensitivity.
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Created a business model proposal for Bloom to expand its service offering into school systems and refugee support programs, aligning with long-term goals of mental health accessibility and inclusion.
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The project demonstrated how culturally responsive design and business modelling can create scalable, impact-driven solutions that foster belonging, empowerment, and mental well-being among refugee youth.
BLOOM & ME
The solution aimed to make therapy accessible, foster belonging, and deliver individualized mental health support for refugee youth. We proposed a collaboration with Bloom to enhance their services with culturally specific CBT-based therapy sessions. The concept centered on a mental health band integrated with Bloom’s app, allowing youth to log emotions, access tailored therapeutic content, and receive support in their own language. Designed for seamless integration within the Canadian school system, the solution combines biotechnology with culturally responsive care to empower youth on their journey to well-being and long-term growth.
By integrating with the existing CBT-based Bloom app, our solution leverages a proven platform to deliver mental health support. The concept adds biometric capabilities to smartwatches, turning them into personalized therapy tools. Users can log their emotions using emoticons, then specify the intensity of their feelings. Based on this input, the watch suggests tailored therapeutic options — such as instrumental music, prerecorded therapy sessions, or translated content — aligned with their emotional state. The system offers support through Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) and Thought Field Therapy (TFT) techniques, ensuring interventions are relevant and culturally accessible.
BLOOM & ME
> To incentivize therapy
> To cultivate a sense of belonging and
> To Individualize portable therapy
A key differentiator of the solution is its culturally specific content. By including therapists from diverse backgrounds and offering language support, the solution overcomes communication barriers, builds trust, and makes therapy more engaging and relevant for refugee youth.
LEARNINGS
This project taught me the importance of empathy-driven research and culturally grounded design. Co-creating with youth, parents, and educators revealed that effective solutions must balance technology with trust, personalization, and a deep understanding of the social and emotional realities of refugee youth.
The project showcased is a team project completed as part of SFIN-6009-002 Business & Design Thinking course + SFIN-6020-001 Innovation Research Methods in Fall Term 2021 at OCAD University for the Strategic Foresight & Innovation (M.Des) Program.
DURATION - SEP 2021 TO DEC 2021
ADVISOR- A.BAINS, S.STEIN, M.Mastroeni (OCAD UNIVERSITY)
Images - Freepik, Unsplash
CREDITS - T.Fernandes, F. Balogun, C. Paano, V. Soneji