Child and youth emotional support counselors receive at least several hundred telephone and electronic inquiries every day regarding bullying, relationships with peers, parents or adults, internal challenges and other troubling issues. In order to find effective ways to develop the emotional intelligence of children and youth, in October A business-initiated social hackathon will take place on the 13th-14th. “Smarties”.
Developing emotional intelligence is one of the key topics that businesses and non-governmental organizations have recently been including in their social responsibility plans. “Business can inspire children and adolescents to care for others by their example, create and finance various emotional intelligence development programs for children, and most importantly, draw public attention to the fact that the emotional world is important and caring for it can become an important value in our society,” says Jūratė Baltuškienė, psychologist and head of the “Parents Line” at the Child Support Center.
Dr. Jurgita Smiltė Jasiulionė, a psychologist at “Children’s Line”, notes that attention to the development of emotional intelligence is an important investment in a child’s well-being and psychological health: “By helping a child better understand their own and other people’s feelings, intentions, and motives, we contribute to having adults who are attentive to both themselves and those around them, who are able to better understand themselves, their needs, and the difficulties they face, and who are characterized by better psychological health.”
According to statistics, the Children’s Line is most often contacted by children and adolescents aged 12-15 years – per day, consultants respond to more than 300 phone calls and chats from children and adolescents, which are becoming increasingly popular. Children are most concerned about difficulties in relationships with parents and peers, bullying at school or in other places, and many children also share difficult feelings – anxiety, fear, thoughts of suicide.
According to Dr. JS Jasiulionė, the development of emotional intelligence begins from infancy – already then, adults raising a child have the opportunity to recognize the baby’s emotions and needs, reflect them, and respond to them – these are small important steps that help develop children’s emotional intelligence.
“Later, a variety of tools are important – both the example of adults in recognizing and understanding the emotional world, expressing one’s feelings, and resolving conflicts, and various educational tools that delve into a person’s inner world. A variety of daily activities are perfect for developing emotional intelligence – watching a movie together, playing a game together, talking about the day, its impressions, and feelings experienced – all of this shows attention to the emotional world and helps children be attentive to their emotions,” says the psychologist from “Children’s Line”.
Both non-governmental organizations and students will offer their ideas.
What tools and ideas could strengthen children’s emotional health? Four teams of non-governmental organizations, one startup, and 14 senior school students, including two Ukrainian students currently living in Lithuania, will seek solutions to this question at the special social hackathon “Smartuoliai” taking place at the ISM University of Management and Economics on October 13–14. They will generate ideas and develop effective solutions based on seven topics identified by psychologists.
The social hackathon is initiated and organized by real estate development company Eika, together with partners ACME Grupe, JUNG and Civinity, the Kazickas Family Foundation, and developed by Katalista Ventures. The organizers hope that the gathered community of businesses, NGOs, startups and youth will continue to support each other and together create a major change in Lithuania’s psychological health.
“Over the 30 years of the company’s operations, supporting children has been an important topic for the company. In recent years, after the sustainability strategy was approved, there was a natural desire to proactively engage in this support direction. After talking to major organizations operating in Lithuania that contribute to the well-being of children and youth in various ways: Unicef, Gelbėkit vaikus, Vaikų linija, Junior Achievement, Reach for Change, GovTech Lab, and Raudonos nosys, we noticed that the range of problems is wide. We chose to work with the category that turned out to be the most important, the basic one – the psychological health of children and youth. We aim to emphasize not problems, but opportunities, i.e. emotional intelligence as a tool for children, youth, parents, teachers, and all of us to cope with emerging challenges,” says Domas Dargis, CEO of Eika.
Support selected ideasimplementation of the
Since the company focuses on innovation as a priority, it was decided to solve the social challenges of children and youth using methods typical of startups – quickly, efficiently, smartly, practically. It is expected that the social hackathon will be an effective start and a catalyst for new measures, and Eika, together with its partners, plans to support the created ideas for developing emotional intelligence until their implementation.
“Paying attention to children and youth is natural, they are the next generation in business and other fields. Also, having studied the problems of youth in Lithuania, it can be noted that there is a significant lack of work on the emotional health of young people. After all, it is the basis for successful relationships, studies, creativity, and careers. We hope that the hackathon will become an initiative that creates long-term change, uniting both business and non-governmental organizations,” says D. Dargis.
Other businesses have also joined the implementation of the social hackathon. “This social hackathon reflects the company’s values and social responsibility directions. Even when organizing activities, we pay a lot of attention to the well-being of team members, starting with regular conversations with employees and ending with the free opportunity to use consultations from emotional health specialists. We believe that the same attention should be paid to the issues of emotional health of young people. We are very close to each other in society, so by paying attention to the emotional health and worldview of our youth, we also take care of our future,” says Ernesta Galinienė, Head of People and Culture at ACME Group.
Friends and social partners of the social hackathon: ISM University of Management and Economics (ISM University of Management and Economics), creative agency “Authors”, “Lithuanian Junior Achievement”, Reach for Change, “Save the Children Lithuania”, GovTech Lab Lithuania, Lithuanian Social Innovation Cluster, CodeAcademy, Children’s Line, Youth Line, Knowledge Tree, NGO Avilys, Youth Can, Crisis Management Center, Child Support Center, Mindletic, Digiklasė, Pergalė, Food Mania, Brooklyn Brothers and others.