Designing Pathways to Belonging: Empowering Neurodivergent Youth Through School-based Creative Technology and Community-building

At a Glance

The project, Designing Pathways to Belonging: Empowering Neurodivergent Youth Through School-based Creative Technology and Community-building, led by Islands of Brilliance, will promote mental health and well-being for neurodivergent high school students in Milwaukee through creative technology programs designed to enhance social cohesion and community-building. In partnership with TransCenter for Youth and UW-Milwaukee, the initiative introduces three inclusive programs—Doodle Lounge, Brilliant Connections and CollabQuest—that use art, design and digital tools to help students build friendships, confidence and a stronger sense of belonging. By training educators to sustain these programs, the project seeks to reduce isolation, foster social connection and create a scalable model to support youth in schools across Wisconsin. Jeana Holt, PhD, assistant professor, School of Nursing, UW-Milwaukee, serves as the academic partner.

The Challenge

Social cohesion, defined as the strength of relationships and a sense of solidarity within a community, is a key social determinant of health that influences both mental and physical well-being. A sense of connection and belonging serves as a protective factor against anxiety, stress and depression and is essential for healthy development and quality of life. However, many autistic students have limited opportunities to build meaningful connections across school, community and workplace settings. This project seeks to address these inequities by creating inclusive, school- and community-based creative technology programs that strengthen social cohesion through skill-building and collaborative experiences across the neurocognitive and age spectrum, with the ultimate goal of improving community health and quality of life for youth with autism.

Project Goals

The goal of this project is to implement and evaluate three school-based creative technology programs designed to enhance social inclusion. Specifically, the project will:

1. Implement a continuum of three scaffolded programs: Doodle Lounge, Brilliant Connections, and CollabQuest.
2. Embed these credit-earning programs within two TransCenter for Youth high schools and train educators through a scaffolded train-the-trainer model to ensure implementation and long-term sustainability.
3. Evaluate changes in students’ connection using mixed-methods data, including validated surveys, focus groups, interviews, reflection journals, attendance and implementation measures.
4. Refine the programs based on feedback from autistic students, families and educators while preparing the model for dissemination and scale-up across the TransCenter for Youth school system and other Wisconsin schools.