"I Will Be Right Here Whenever You Need Me": Designing AI-Mediated Collaborative Support for Adolescent Mental Health in Border Regions

Abstract

Adolescents in border communities often face emotional challenges and avoid formal psychological support because of stigma, privacy concerns, and fragmented trust across families and schools. Existing conversational agents for youth mental health mainly support one-on-one interaction, with limited attention to collaborative support relationships. We conducted formative interviews with 19 adolescents from China–Myanmar border regions and propose an AI-Mediated Collaborative Support Framework that reconceptualizes conversational AI as a sociotechnical mediator for emotional disclosure, trust-sensitive communication, and support coordination across adolescent–home–school relationships. Based on this framework, we developed Moodie, an AI-mediated mental health prototype, and conducted a three-week pilot deployment with 10 adolescents. Preliminary findings indicate that participants perceived Moodie as a low-pressure space for emotional expression and preparation for communication with trusted adults, highlighting the potential of conversational AI for collaborative youth mental health support in resource-constrained contexts.