Dr. Shelley Craig & the GLO App featured on FIFSW News
Check out this article by Megan Easton on Dr. Shelley Craig and her work on the GLO app for the Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work News!
Research in action: Shelley Craig collaborates with community to develop the GLO app for Queer youth
Author: Megan Easton
At a time when potential dangers dominate discussions about young people’s digital media use, Shelley Craig’s research has shown that being online can actually boost 2SLGBTQI+youth’s wellbeing. She’s now applied her research to the creation of the curriculum for new interactive app designed to improve the mental health and wellbeing of queer youth as they navigate the online world.
A professor at the University of Toronto’s Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work, Craig systematically developed the evidence-based content of the GLO app in close collaboration It Gets Better Canada (IGBC), a charity dedicated to empowering 2SLGBTQ+youth. LG2, a developer based in Montreal, brought the curriculum and vision to life.
“Queer young people are under significant threat in the current political climate, but being online, even on social media, can offer a safe space where 2SLGBTQI+ youth build relationships and develop their identities,” says Craig, whose research is rooted in more than two decades of social work practice dedicated to fostering the resilience of 2SLGBTQI+youth. “With fewer and fewer offline safe spaces and safe people for them, harnessing the connectedness of online access and resources is needed more than ever.”
Craig describes the GLO app as the first of its kind to provide contemporary, experiential education based on research about the needs, preferences and expertise of queer youth and their experiences in both online and offline environments. Users select a sequence from several learning pathways on topics such as managing stress, digital advocacy, social media, online hate and hostility, misinformation, privacy, and AI. As they move through the pathways, they engage with specific videos and prompts developed by 2SLGBTQI+youth content creators.
“This is research in action in direct partnership with community and an organization doing amazing work, and it’s really exciting for me to see the practical application of my research” says Craig, who holds the Canada Research Chair in Sexual and Gender Minority Youth and is the founder and director of the International Partnership for Queer Youth Resilience (INQYR). (She highlights the process of creating the GLO curriculum on INQYR’s website.)
“As It Gets Better Canada was beginning to develop a resource to address the unique challenges of 2SLGBTQI+ youth in Canada today, providing supports for combatting online bullying was top of mind for us,” says Omid Razavi, Executive Director of IGBC. “Dr Shelley Craig’s research, particularly that focused on cultivating resilience in marginalized populations through innovative, community-based interventions, immediately resonated with our need to ensure our mobile app had a solid foundation to educate and nurture our queer youth demographic.”
A 2023 Statistics Canada report found that 52 per cent of non-binary teens and 33 per cent of teens who identified as being attracted to the same gender have experienced online harassment, compared to 25 per cent of teens overall. “Our job as social workers and researchers is to find ways for queer youth to tap into their strengths and aspirations within this reality,” says Craig.
Grounded in Craig’s extensive community social work practice, the GLO app takes a joyful approach to teaching users how to cope with negative experiences online and advocate for themselves. “Its colourful, fun aesthetic and the gamified journeys really engage users and keep learning fun,” she says.
Users create cute, customized GLO pets who embark on various adventures, earning accessories (like sunglasses) when they learn new skills. “It’s a parallel process of caring for their GLO, tapping into the natural altruism of 2SLGBTQI+youth, and learning skills to better care for themselves,” says Craig, who’s always tried to centre joy in her practice and research with queer youth as an antidote to the challenges that disproportionately confront them. “The GLO app embodies queer joy, hope and resilience. We know that 2SLGBTQI+ youth encounter hate and discrimination both offline and online, and that this negatively affects their mental health.”
The GLO app brings together several strands of Craig’s investigations. For example, it uses the findings of her study on how queer youth deal with anti-2SLGBTQI+messages online, coaching users on actions such as reporting hate, effectively responding to misinformation or simply leaving certain online platforms.
“The app also helps users recognize that the hate is not their fault. It isn’t about them, even if it’s targeted at them, but about the person who’s doing the bullying,” says Craig. “This is a reframing technique that we use in our widely used cognitive behaviour therapy intervention called AFFIRM, and it’s part of the coping toolbox we’re building with GLO.”
Through her research on the resilience of LGBTQ+ youth, Craig has designed and tested multiple interventions, such as AFFIRM, in both therapeutic settings and through technology, to enhance the wellbeing of sexual and gender minorities. And this work has always been done in close collaboration with the people who will use the interventions.
“As social work researchers, we never want to speak on behalf of anyone, we want to lift up the voice or experience of a particular population,” says Craig. “It makes our research more relevant and, honestly, a lot more fun when its with youth and community.”
She developed the GLOs app’s learning pathways while working with core advisory group of queer youth, then presented the content areas to a larger national gathering of young people for revision and refinement this past summer. “It was validating and helpful to identify the nuance, a lot of back-and-forth to find out what resonated with them and integrate everyone’s insights.”
Since the app launched in November, user feedback has been overwhelmingly positive.
“I can tell GLO was made for me as a queer high school student,” one user told Craig. “It helps me think about a lot of areas that I deal with everyday, like managing stress or dealing with online hate but in a way that helps me feel good about myself as I learn and take care of my GLO with accessories!”
“The tips in the antibullying section made me realize I should just block and report people instead of going back and forth in the comments section. Which is way less draining,” said another.
Craig has also heard from clinicians who are finding the app helpful as an additional tool in their use of AFFIRM and their practice.
“Whether we’re talking about supporting queer youth themselves, their caregivers or clinicians, I want my research to be both rigorous and useful,” she says. “I want it to make a difference in their daily lives.”
