Young people from four detention and educational centres in Romania have been involved into development of an application – a chatbot – that will be useful to vulnerable children and children who seek information, legal advice and assistance online.
Access to these centres is restricted, but our specialists reached the young people through online sessions and questionnaires filled in by the teenagers. Their opinions are valuable to us, therefore the IT experts took them into account in the chatbot refining phase, so that it can respond better to these children’s needs.
We got details from Ioana Mureșan, legal counsellor and CAB facilitator (Child Advisory Board), who holds online training sessions with these teenagers within Terre des hommes project.
- From the discussions you have had so far with CAB teenagers, what would be their training needs, counselling and also emotional needs ?
- Young people in detention centres face a large range of needs and problems, from lack of vocational training to traumas, mental health problems, abuse of substances, family relation difficulties, lack of security or safety, lack of self esteem and hope for future, which require individualised support. I think they need training and counselling in various fields such as management of traumas, mental health problems, addictions, they need facilitated access to education, to legal assistance and medical care, so that they may have a better life after release from centres.
- Did they understand the role of this chatbot? Were they happy to participate in developing the application?
- The teenagers were very active and participated in each chatbot construction phase. They were pleasantly surprised that they were included in the discussions and that their opinions mattered.
- How did CAB young people contribute to chatbot construction?
- We organised online meetings with teenagers from detention centres. During the talks, our specialists listened to them and asked them about various chatbot construction aspects. We used a set of questions, sort of questionnaires, and thus we collected teenagers’ feedback on critical themes such as accessibility, privacy and functionality of the chatbot.
- How were their opinions and proposals taken into account when refining the chatbot?
- This chatbot was co-designed in a collaborative manner and all parties, including the final users - the young people - participated actively in the development of this legal tool. The chatbot was constantly updated depending on teenagers’ opinions following CAB sessions, therefore I consider that their opinions were taken into account and implemented.
- How would they like to be helped in future?
- Many detained young people said they want to be helped emotionally, particularly with regard to conflict management and trauma healing. They need trustful persons who should listen to them and guide them. Also, many of them said they would have needed to know more about their rights when they committed an offence, more information on criminal law, but also on child rights and family rights.
- What would be your message to legal professionals (judges, lawyers) that interact or will interact with teenagers in contact with the law?
- I think we need an empathic approach when talking to these young people. Each teenager is different and has different needs, therefore the interventions should be personalised depending on this aspect.
Social workers, lawyers, psychologists, IT experts from Netherlands, Belgium, Hungary, Greece, Bulgaria and Romania, who participate in our project, are developing an application – a chatbot – that would talk to children about their rights, not as a lawyer but as a friend. The newly created system will encourage children to ask questions and will answer with simple, clear messages tailored to their needs. The child user will explain his problem, and the application will search the right answers in a data base and will formulate them in appropriate, friendly language.
As soon as the application is translated into Romanian and included on a public website, we will make sure it reaches as many children and youth as possible, vulnerable groups particularly. The chatbot may be installed on smart phones and accessed by any user. Because they don’t have access to phones, youth in detention will use the chatbot only under supervision, in the technical room of the centre.
The application is being developed within i-ACCESS MyRights project – artificial intelligence driven support for a smart justice with children in Europe, a project through which we help children in contact with the law to have easier access to information. The project is implemented in Romania by Terre des hommes Foundation and co-funded by the European Union.
