Mental Wellbeing of Youth

Deeksha Sharma is designing an application-based game that can be used to understand and assess schoolchildren’s emotional intelligence, including adaptability, creativity, management of emotions and sense of belonging. Working in partnership with schools in Syracuse, New York, Sharma is co-designing the game with children and adolescents, ensuring that it will be easy for them to use. The result? Teachers will understand the real-time psychology and wellbeing of the class and use this information as the basis for in-class lessons. As a Faculty Fellow in Engaged Scholarship, Sharma is designing and piloting the product and analyzing and publishing the results.

“The pandemic has been a catalyst in this initiative to convert the idea into an urgent reality…. It is imperative to analyze and understand mental health outside of the clinic as routinely as we accept assessments and training of physical fitness in a daily gym class. It is imperative we take action within and across communities this year. This may be a once in a century opportunity to engage communities across the globe in awareness around youth wellbeing and emotional skill development.”—Deeksha Sharma