InsideU – Social and Emotional Learning for a Mentally Healthy Future

There is an increasing gap between the need for emotional wellness resources and accessibility, and availability of resources to meet this demand. InsideU is a preventative solution aimed at building lifelong capabilities to address this challenge. Existing social and emotional learning (SEL) programs often aren’t relevant or entertaining enough for the desired engagement and outcomes. The goal of this project was to develop a tool that: - could facilitate emotional education using evidence-based approaches - was relevant to a diverse population of young people - leveraged the power of Pixar’s Inside Out film to promote SEL skills in an engaging and entertaining way.

InsideU is an innovative approach to learning about emotions through interactive storytelling and play. It facilitates children and adults in conversations about growing up, emotions and the construction of mental and emotional resilience. It was important that InsideU reflected the perspectives of its audience, and presented challenges they were interested in. The final product is the result of an extensive human-centred design process, with multiple rounds of collaboration and testing with youth, prototyping and iteration, and oversight from psychologists and researchers. The platform is designed to be scalable with more content and features to cover the breadth of SEL education.

InsideU equips children with the skills to sustain social and emotional wellness over their lifetime. It is a resource caregivers can use to help young people explore complex emotional concepts and real-world dilemmas. It also helps to provide a framework for them to communicate their emotions and perspectives with their peers and caregivers. It delivers all of this through an engaging process of experimentation and play alongside familiar characters and scenes from Pixar’s Inside Out. The platform is designed to be broadly accessible and scalable to enrich SEL curriculums globally.

The discovery and ideation phase of the project involved extensive collaboration with youth at the Boys & Girls Club of Metro Denver, Colorado. This process was about understanding what themes and messaging they responded well with. It also went through rigorous rounds of co-design and review with psychologists and researchers at the Renée Crown Wellness Institute to ensure the content was aligned with evidence-based approaches. Pixar Animation Studios also reviewed and gave feedback on the project at various times to ensure that the creative choices were in line with the IP, and that the quality was up to standard. A high-fidelity prototype was piloted in 2022, complete with two ‘episodes’ of content. Each episode is equivalent to a lesson that educators and caregivers can work through with children at their own pace. These episodes contain a combination of interactive dialogue with characters, analysis of scenes from the film, and learning activities. Based on the insights and feedback from this pilot, further development happened throughout 2023, leading to a public release in early 2024. This included revisions of the original content, two new episodes with more scenarios and features, and an overhaul of the navigation and user experience.