A System of Care, Not Control: Co-Designing Online Safety and Wellbeing Solutions with Guardians ad Litem for Youth in Child Welfare
Johanna Olesk, Ozioma C. Oguine, Mariana Fernandez Espinosa, Alexis B. Peirce Caudell, Karla Badillo-Urquiola
TL;DR
This study reframes online safety for youth in the Child Welfare System as a relational, multi-stakeholder responsibility rather than individual control. Through a two-part, participatory workshop with Guardians ad Litem, the authors reveal how systemic barriers, fragmented communication, and gaps in digital literacy hinder youth safety, and they co-design technology concepts that emphasize trust-building, coordinated care, and integration of offline supports. The work contributes a first empirical GAL perspective on youth online safety in the CWS, demonstrates the value of GAL-led co-design, and offers design principles—centered on multi-stakeholder collaboration, relational healing, and offline integration—that can guide socio-technical interventions in child welfare settings. The findings have practical implications for HCI and GROUP communities seeking trauma-informed, equity-focused technologies that enhance safety and wellbeing for vulnerable youth while respecting family dynamics and legal processes.
Abstract
Current online safety technologies overly rely on parental mediation and often fail to address the unique challenges faced by youth in the Child Welfare System (CWS). These youth depend on a complex ecosystem of support, including families, caseworkers, and advocates, to safeguard their wellbeing. Within this network, Guardians ad Litem (GALs) play a unique role as court-appointed advocates tasked with ensuring the best interests of youth. Yet little is known about how GALs perceive and support youths' online safety. To address this gap, we conducted a two-part workshop with 10 GALs to explore their perspectives on online safety and collaboratively envision technology-based solutions tailored to the needs of youth in the CWS. Our findings revealed that GALs struggle to support youth with online safety challenges due to limited digital literacy, inconsistency of institutional support, lack of collaboration among stakeholders, and complexity of family dynamics. While GALs recognized the need for some oversight of youth online activities, they emphasized designing systems that support online safety beyond control or restriction by fostering stability, trust, and meaningful interactions, both online and offline. GALs emphasized the importance of developing tools that enable ongoing communication, therapeutic support, and coordination across stakeholders. Proposed design concepts focused on strengthening youth agency and cross-stakeholder collaboration through virtual avatars and mobile apps. This work provides actionable design concepts for strengthening relationships and communication across care network. It also redefines traditional approaches to online safety, advocating for a holistic, multi-stakeholder online safety paradigm for youth in the CWS.