Overview
This full-day workshop introduces "sustainable care" as a design lens, asking how technology might support children's sustained engagement with social causes without contributing to empathic distress or burnout. The term carries a dual meaning: it encompasses both children's care toward societal issues and our care toward children as designers, educators, and researchers.
We invite researchers and practitioners across child-computer interaction, games, education, and youth mental health to map this landscape together and develop a research agenda for the CCI community.
The workshop is organized around four themes derived from the US Surgeon General's advisory on protecting youth mental health:
- Bounded responsibility: understanding one's role as part of a collective effort rather than carrying the weight of global problems alone.
- Actionable pathways: having concrete, age-appropriate ways to contribute that connect awareness to meaningful action.
- Resilience through community: developing capacities to persist through setbacks and uncertainty without losing hope or motivation.
- Mental health orientation: recognizing mental health both as a precondition for and a desired outcome of sustainable care.
Workshop Agenda
| Time | Activity and Description |
|---|---|
| 9:00–9:10am | Welcome, agenda, and goals for the day |
| 9:10–9:35am | Participant introductions: name, context, and what you hope to take away from today |
| 9:35–9:45am | Introduction to the workshop theme and four themes of sustainable care |
| 9:45–10:05am | Individual reflection: recall a moment of “unsustainable care,” either firsthand or observed in close others (write individually, then share briefly in small groups) |
| 10:05–10:30am | Break |
| 10:30–11:15am | Roundtable 1 (grouped by thematic interest): identify patterns of unsustainable care within the group's topic area, how different stakeholders are affected or contribute, and the role of children in particular |
| 11:15–11:30am | Report-back: each group shares key takeaways with the full workshop |
| 11:30am–1:30pm | Lunch |
| 1:30–2:00pm | Nap time, stretch, and individual reflection |
| 2:00–2:45pm | Roundtable 2 (grouped by technology of interest): examine how specific technologies mediate unsustainable care, the stakeholders involved, and the implications for children |
| 2:45–3:10pm | Break |
| 3:10–4:00pm | Roundtable 3 (return to Roundtable 1 groups): share insights from Roundtable 2 and map them onto the four themes of sustainable care—bounded responsibility, actionable pathways, resilience through community, and mental health orientation—to develop concrete action plans (e.g., research collaborations, strategies for embedding sustainable care in ongoing work, draft guidelines for the group's domain) |
| 4:00–4:30pm | Report-back: each group shares action plans with the full workshop |
| 4:30–5:00pm | Closing: feedback, next steps, planned outputs, and follow-up process |
Organizers
Call for Participation
Submit (by Apr. 14th) >We invite researchers, designers, and practitioners to join a full-day workshop on sustainable care—supporting children's lasting engagement with social causes through technology design.
Children today encounter climate change, conflict, and inequality through digital technologies. Much of this content is designed for attention capture rather than constructive engagement, contributing to rising anxiety and disengagement among young people who care deeply but feel powerless. This workshop introduces sustainable care as a design lens and invites participants to map the landscape of technologies that help or harm children's capacity to engage with social issues over time.
We welcome position papers (2–4 pages, ACM SIGCHI format) addressing:
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Empirical findings on how children encounter social issues through technology
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Design cases: technologies that support or undermine sustained engagement
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Perspectives from games, education, mental health, or civic technology (including surprising observations, personal experiences, or lessons from applying these ideas in practice)
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Encore submissions: previously published work with a short statement on its relevance to sustainable care
Submissions will be reviewed for relevance and potential contribution to workshop discussion. We prioritize diversity in disciplinary background and perspective. At least one author of each accepted paper must attend the workshop, and all participants must register for both the workshop and the main conference. Submissions should not be anonymized.
Submission Link: https://forms.gle/6AUXtxp1aFBmCvut6 (Deadline: Apr. 14th)