By: Martin Rafferty, CEO& Founder of Youth Era
Monday, April 11th, 2022
Last month, a landmark moment occurred for the field of youth peer support. The University of Oxford published a peer-reviewed study based on a program that my organization, Youth Era, created at the beginning of the pandemic.
For context, Youth Era is all about empowering young people to succeed with solutions ranging from short-term assistance to large-scale community programs. In support of those efforts, we’re continuing to expand the scope of our virtual outreach and interaction with youth.
We’ve found that virtual platforms have made support services more accessible to youth during the pandemic, and we believe that this form of engagement will continue to grow and evolve moving forward.
This belief, along with the pandemic-related increase in mental health struggles among young people, led the University of Oxford to reach out to our organization with a game-changing proposal. Oxford researchers wanted to collaborate with us to study whether youth mental health could be helped through online intervention. So, with just a few weeks to prepare, UPLIFT by Youth Era was born.
The final report, released last month, highlights everything we found as we trained more than a thousand young adults from across the world. We spend countless hours perfecting our virtual event, and we learned many valuable lessons along the way.
So, inspired by the report’s publication, I wanted to share three key takeaways that can be applied to any virtual event. Youth Era built a studio with a 360-degree screen to help engage young people during events, yet the most powerful moments came from planning and not technology. Let’s dive in!
1. Breaking Digital Ground
Before 2020, the idea that live virtual training could ever be as effective as its in-person counterpart was unheard of. For example, think back on the pre-pandemic attitudes towards stigmatized online college degree programs. When shelter-in-place orders forced educators to go virtual overnight, we were forced to rethink everything we believed about what was possible in the virtual education space.
As we prepared for our first UPLIFT event, we predicted that we could leverage the strengths of the virtual environment to create an experience that was actually better than the traditional in-person experience. The data collected by Oxford researchers supports our prediction — but, of course, the road wasn’t without its detours.
As we began the construction of our program, we ran into a common roadblock. Like most other organizations, we tried to mimic successful in-person training activities by translating them directly to the virtual space.
While well-meaning, as many of us have learned over the last two years, this assumption just doesn’t make sense. Some activities that work in person just don’t work the same way virtually, and vice versa. The key instead is to think about the attributes you like about the in-person activity and reimagine them for the virtual platform you’re using.
Let’s take a closer look at how we broke down a powerful real-world activity and created a successful virtual equivalent. Many trainers in the equity and oppression space will be familiar with the activity called “Race for the American Dream.” The idea is simple: participants get ready for a controlled race, and questions about privilege translate to your progress in the race. (“If both of your parents are still married, take a step forward,” or, “If you have one parent who isn’t a native English speaker, take a step back.”)
As you can imagine, trying to create the exact same experience virtually would have been a recipe for disaster. So, we extracted the attributes of the activity itself and created a virtual alternative called “Reveal Yourself.” The premise was similar. We asked participants to turn off their video feeds, listen to a series of statements that we read aloud, and turn on their cameras if the statement was applicable to them.
One question was, “Turn on your video if this pandemic has been the hardest thing you’ve ever experienced.” Naturally, a few screens would flicker to life. Then, the narrator instructed the group to notice who was with them and who wasn’t, then to notice how that made them feel. After a few powerful moments of reflection, everyone was instructed to cut their cameras.
After the experience, nearly every student noted how powerful the experience was because they felt like they weren’t alone. Digital ground can, apparently, be sacred.
2. Emotional Energy Thermostat
Weddings, ovens, and musicals all have one thing in common: intelligent design about the flow of energy. When it comes to designing training, the same principle is important. We spent a lot of time reflecting on how to map out the group’s energy between each activity and segment of training.
After lunch? We focus on high-energy activities to beat the afternoon slump. Talking about suicide prevention? We follow with a hopeful small group session about an uplifting subject. It’s crucial that each training element is designed by considering what kind of experience you want participants to have and how you want them to feel when you’re done.
For each section, consider this: Do you want them to feel energized or relaxed? Then, think about how to balance those energy and emotion shifts throughout your schedule, considering the natural energy flow of the day and how each portion will be affected by what comes before and after it.
In our case, our audience was made up of high school students, so we never wanted a lecture to go on for more than 15 minutes without incorporating some engagement, like small group breakout sessions or other hands-on activities. If you’re concerned about participants losing focus or feeling low energy, using small groups is a great way to keep everyone engaged.
Lastly, during UPLIFT, we had youth peer support specialists who specifically watched the faces of our participants during the session, aiming to gauge energy levels and report back to the presenter — in real-time — if someone seemed to be too heavy. Giving yourself the flexibility to hit a music break or pause for a game allows you to make effective changes to respond to energy levels. This is doubly true when sensitive subjects are involved, as in our case.
3. Virtually Superior
When our young participants clicked into our Zoom link, they were greeted by an engaging, sometimes alarming sight. Instead of a quiet black screen or awkward small talk, they were met with Youth Era’s own Twitch streamer, Mike, who was dancing to TikTok music and welcoming each participant by name. At the end of the first study, one of our participants shared that the welcome felt “cringe” in the first few minutes, but by the end of the event, he was going to miss Mike’s energy the most.
Why does this matter? It proves that there are incredible options for your virtual event space that wouldn’t even be possible in person. In many ways, the virtual landscape isn’t just an acceptable substitute for in-person experiences — it’s actually superior.
Keep in mind that when you make the choice to train virtually, you have tons of options when it comes to leaning on technology to improve the experience. During UPLIFT, we knew that each session could incorporate music, movie clips, and even apps that wouldn’t be as immersive if we tried them in person. We leaned on SlideO and Jamboard for user interaction, then included a Jeopardy app to help our participants apply their new insights.
As you explore all the tools that make the virtual environment so full of potential, make sure to test everything. Do a dress rehearsal or dry run with your staff or loved ones to gauge how activities will work, how each section will feel, and how any tech elements will work. Work out any missteps ahead of time, and get comfortable with technology that will need to perform perfectly in the moment.
Lastly, don’t forget to follow up with participants after the fact to hear firsthand which aspects of training worked and which didn’t. Then, you’ll know how to adapt moving forward to capture even more value from the experience.
Final Thoughts
Ultimately, Oxford University researcher Dr. Gabriella Pavarini shared that she had never seen results like the ones we saw after virtual training. We proved that it’s possible to hold world-class events in the virtual space and to reconsider our beliefs about the need for in-person training.
Check out the full report for more of the researchers’ findings, and stay tuned as we continue to reflect on how to make virtual events even better.
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