Fredericton Company Producing Video Games To Help Youth With Mental-Health Issues
A young New Brunswick company is on the cusp of getting the data it needs to assess whether its new video game is effective in helping children cope with anxiety issues.
The company is Fredericton-based Reframe Games, and its video game is called Guide. It has been testing the game with young people, mostly nine to 13-year-olds, at eight clinics in the Fredericton area.
The company’s six-member team will examine the data once the trials are complete. They then plan to release the game publicly in the near future. The goal is to later launch a similar game for other mental health issues.
Once the team has more than one game, it plans to develop a platform that will host a range of games supporting mental health in young people – both its own games and those made by other groups. The company’s big vision is to be the go-to site for mental health games.
“We’re a catalyst for change, using fun as the change agent,” said CEO Jade Yhap in an interview last week.
Reframe Games started when Yhap and fellow undergraduates at the University of New Brunswick began to research the use of games to treat anxiety in young people. As interest in the project grew, the team travelled to various events across North America that focused on psychological treatment for young people.
“At these locations, we had a lot of feedback from parents and professors saying that this would be an excellent program to use to talk among themselves and with kids about this issue,” said Yhap.
Read the rest of the story in Entrevestor.