Enabling Digital Parenting Interventions to Promote Empathic Partnerships among Parents, Educators, and Adolescents Targeting School Refusal

School refusal is a complex issue which typically develops in adolescence, often in the context of anxiety and depressive disorders. While parents and educators play a critical role in supporting these adolescents, they need guidance to work together to overcome the problem. Our study explores how technology can be designed to help parents and educators work together in supporting adolescents who refuse school. We first conducted 14 interviews with parents which highlighted that empathic understanding and communication between parents and the educators is key to supporting adolescents with school refusal. Subsequently, we conducted co-design workshops with three parents, three adolescents and five educators. Our workshop findings show that reactive and problem-focused communication can undermine trust-building and progress towards supporting the adolescent. Drawing on these findings, we formulate design implications that can enable empathic parent-adolescent-educator partnerships, provide holistic support for parents, and facilitate individual tailoring for diverse parent-adolescent journeys.