“I can do whatever I put my mind to!”: How prioritizing belonging in the design of technology-based programs can support foster-involved youth with self-efficacy, self-expression, and personal exploration.

This paper explores how technology-based programs can be intentionally designed to foster a sense of belonging for youth in the foster care system. Foster-involved youth often face significant developmental trauma and have limited opportunities for self-directed exploration or agency. The authors designed a six-week summer internship program that prioritized "moments of belonging" to support two foster-involved youth in creative self-expression and technology co-design.

The researchers implemented specific design strategies to cultivate inclusion. These included:

• Invitations: Crafting job descriptions and interview processes that emphasized the youth's value and autonomy.
• Entering: Providing dedicated, personalized desk spaces, unmediated access to food, and official building access to signal that the interns were trusted members of the lab.
• Participating: Facilitating creative workshops using diverse digital tools (e.g., generative AI, music creation) and establishing daily reflection rituals to process emotions.
• Contributing: Involving the interns in co-creating community norms and leading an open-ended technology co-design project.

The study found that these design choices significantly impacted the interns' experience. By prioritizing emotional safety and providing a supportive container for expression, the interns were able to move past initial feelings of being "in a different world" to feeling accepted and capable. The interns reported increased self-efficacy, often summarizing their growth with the sentiment, "I can do whatever I put my mind to!" The authors note that when youth encountered technical difficulties, they often internalized these as personal failures; therefore, providing emotional support and a critical lens on how technology is designed was essential for maintaining engagement.