Anonymous peer support as the first step to school social work
A 5-day co-creation sprint with the German Red Cross that became realtalk.help — anonymous peer support as the low-threshold first step toward school social work, rolled out nationwide.
Timeline · 10-day sprintRole · Design & ResearchClient · German Red CrossTools · Figma & paperStatus · Live nationwide
The challenge
School social work helps — but it doesn't reach many young people. Shame, high thresholds and a lack of anonymity hold back exactly those who need support most. How do you make help radically easy to reach — anonymous, low-threshold and trustworthy?
How might we …
… make school social work radically easy to reach — without compromising the Red Cross's duty of care?
Our approach
In a five-day sprint with students, social workers and experts, we mapped the real barriers and built “real talk”: anonymous peer support, backed behind the scenes by professional Red Cross staff — in the language of young people.
Guiding principle: anonymity as a design principle. A guided flow that earns the next small “yes” at every step.
The method — a 5-day design sprint
Five days — workshop, prototype, usability test.
2 days
Workshop
Understand, ideate and decide together — students, social workers and experts in one room.
2 days
Design & prototype
Build a realistic prototype of the chosen solution.
1 day
Usability test
Test with young people — real feedback before production.
01
What problems do we have?
Qualitative Research
What we heard — six themes, ranked by vote.
We clustered the raw voices from the sprint into themes, then let both groups dot-vote what mattered most. Where young adults and DRK social workers disagreed, the gap itself became a design signal.
Young adult studentsDRK social workers & school social managers
01Anonymous contact13votes
4 young adults9 social workers
“I am ashamed of being needy.”
“I don't want my classmates to hear or see me asking for support.”
“One cannot ask for support anonymously.”
02Contact threshold10votes
5 young adults5 social workers
“The great inhibition threshold before the first call for help.”
“Offers of help aren't available outside school hours.”
“I don't know how to contact the school advisor.”
“No time to go to the school counsellor during school hours.”
“How can I contact the parents?”
03Peer-to-peer support8votes
4 young adults4 social workers
“Involve young adults as advisors — they're closer to the target group.”
“Support young people in helping their peers.”
“Sensitise young people that it makes sense to support those in need.”
04Popular youth media offers5votes
3 young adults2 social workers
“Lack of integration with the channels young adults already use — YouTube, TikTok, WhatsApp.”
05Help offers & impact4votes
1 young adult3 social workers
“The offers of help mainly focus on solutions.”
“Do I really keep an eye on all young adults?”
“There's no personal connection for people who often need to ask for help.”
“Help for young adults in a phase where they don't want to talk to everybody.”
06Data protection1vote
1 young adult0 social workers
“I want my data to be secure.”
02
What should we solve first?
Point of View (POV)
From research to sharp problem statements.
A point of view is a clear, concise problem statement. It connects the user, their concrete need and a surprising insight from the research — and it keeps the whole design process focused on solving the right problem.
Three problem statements — prioritised
Priority 1How might we
… let young people reach out completely anonymously, so shame never blocks the first step?
Anonymity
Priority 2How might we
… lower the threshold to that first contact, so asking for help feels effortless?
Low threshold
Priority 3How might we
… let students support students — peer to peer, in their own language?
Peer-to-peer support
03
Collecting ideas for a solution
Ideation · health journey
Creating ideas along the contact journey.
Ideas mapped to every contact point of the health journey — open fullscreen for the detail.
04
Proven concept
The solution
Four screens, one low-threshold path to help.
Landing — chat & booking
Choose your topic
Follow us on TikTok
Anonymous · confidential · free
Outcome
The 10-day sprint became a service used nationwide: anonymously reachable, backed by real professionals and in the language of young people. A prototype became a real place to turn to.
About the project
realtalk.help was created in partnership with the German Red Cross. Design and research: Peter Spiegel. Focused on anonymity, peer trust and a flow that earns every next step.
“One decision per screen changed everything. The moment we stopped asking for everything at once, young people started to talk — anonymously, but for real.”
