The Groomed to Grow team formed the goal of helping to improve mental health of people in downtown Boise who have recently become homeless by helping them raise their self-esteem and confidence. In order to build empathy for their population, the Groomed to Grow team conducted interviews with people experiencing homelessness.

The Helping Helpers team focused on improving the mental health of health care workers throughout the Treasure Valley. When the team learned that doctors have the highest suicide rate out of any profession in the country, they chose to take action on promoting wellness for hospital workers.

Many veterans transitioning into civilian life experience a lack of direction and discouragement about their futures, but they have a desire to rediscover their values. Returning from the service can be stressful with responsibilities of civilian life like finding a job, house hunting, going back to school, and maintaining relationships.

This Design Lab team’s end user was the Idaho Suicide Prevention Hotline (ISPH). The ISPH has been a free resource for Idahoans in crisis for over six years. The problems that the team identified were the need for volunteers and the stigma around suicide and asking for help amongst youth. More specifically, ISPH came to the team with the opportunity to help with the basic foundations of a potential Youth Hotline.

High school students often face negative stigmas when seeking access to information about their sexual and reproductive health. This team set out with a goal to help decrease these stigmas and support teens in finding sexual and reproductive health information.

The Friendly Forces team worked to help improve the mental health of children in the foster care system. Friendly Forces identified one of the main traumas for kids living in foster care can be the initial removal from their homes by police officers. From this problem, Friendly Forces created the following research question, “How might we create a less traumatic experience for kids who are forcibly removed from their home and put in foster care?”

The leadership at the Boise Police Department (BPD) realized that they needed a way to break down the “macho stigma” that forms between officers. This Design Lab group decided to help them. They first interviewed three officers – Captain Ron Winegar and Captain Brian Lee of BPD, as well as Detective Carper of the Nampa Police Department. All three officers shed insight into the deep struggle police officers face throughout the day.

This Design Lab team is very passionate about helping Treasure Valley police. In particular, they want officers to have a more enjoyable and safe work environment.

Over the course of the term, they connected with law enforcement officers several times to try to understand some of the challenges police officers face day-to-day on the job. Through empathy and understanding work, they decided to focus on how the public perceives and treats officers (specifically, food service workers).

The cycle of bullying is one of the hardest cycles to break. It starts with a bully teasing, demeaning, or abusing someone, while bystanders fail to get involved. The victim often becomes a bully, and more people stand by, doing nothing to stop it. They could speak up, but they typically don’t.

According to Carol Jago of Los Angeles Times, peer feedback is more effective in changing a student’s actions than adult feedback.