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Our Mindset-XR Innovation Support Programme spotlight for October is on Play Well For Life, established by Dr. Sarah Campbell in 2019.

Background

Having experienced my own mental health struggles as a young person, I saw that treatment often involved very long waits and traditional psychological therapeutic approaches that didn’t work for everyone,  and I wanted to do something to address this.

While studying for a PhD in Psychology, I worked as Head of Wellbeing at a small university and started to think about technology solutions as being the way forward rather than the traditional hard to scale models of psychological intervention. 

I co-founded an award-winning wellbeing app called 87%, and learnt a huge amount about developing digital products for psychological intervention. I also saw that apps struggled with the long-term engagement needed to bring about behavioural change. I was using game-based approaches in workshops, and that is where I started to explore digital game-based learning. I did a post-doc at University of Southampton, developing a digital game for children with chronic health conditions to learn transition skills, and started to understand these approaches.  

During my PhD I used music to study emotions, and developed a music-based listening intervention and evidenced it compared to mindfulness. As a result of this, I won funding to turn it into a digital prototype, and this was the start of Play Well For Life.

Play Well For Life was established to use game-based learning to deliver psychological intervention to young people. Our unique selling point is that all our games are social, meaning young people inherently develop communication skills, social connections and a sense of belonging, which we know is vital, particularly for teenagers, to develop a sense of wellbeing. We have developed and commercialised several games, employing game development teams from the games industry to ensure the games look and feel great, and co-producing with adolescents, clinical psychologists and educators to ensure the necessary skills are developed and have a strong evidence-base. We then work with academics to evidence that are games are doing what they were designed to do. 

How does your innovation tackle inequalities?

Dragons of Afterlands is an award-winning, evidence-based augmented reality board game that can be played in-person, remotely or hybrid. Free-at-the-point of access, we are targeting Dragons of Afterlands specifically at those who experience higher challenges with their mental health. Young people with chronic health conditions are 60% more likely to experience a mental health issue by the age of 15 than other teenagers. Adolescents with complex medical conditions are often uprooted from their environments and isolated in hospital when undergoing treatment. Such hospital stays reduce a young person’s autonomy, activity levels and disrupt peer relationships, leading to anxiety, depression and social withdrawal.

Our tool has been identified as an innovative way to support young people transitioning into hospital, building relationships with staff and peers during their stay and supporting continuity of care when they leave hospital. It is also being used by staff during hospital stays to help have tricky conversations and develop essential skills to support resilience, socio-emotional and advocacy skills. 

A second group we are targeting are those receiving education from hospital education services. Whilst some are young people with chronic health conditions, hospital education services increasingly support young people who experience Emotionally-Based School Avoidance (EBSA). These young people are currently offered minimal 1:1 tutoring (two hours per week in some areas). This is resource intensive and doesn’t allow for the benefits that come from learning with peers. Our tool has been identified as an innovative way to extend resources by enabling 1:3 delivery, and to build peer support opportunities, ultimately leading to faster re-integration to in-person and group learning. 

What is the biggest challenge you have faced so far in developing your innovation?

As with all projects, finding continuous funding, and enough funding is always a challenge. That’s why the Innovate UK Mindset-XR programme, and the support that comes with it from the Health Innovation Network South London, are so valuable. Aside from that, one of the big challenges we are facing at the moment is ensuring our product meets NHS infection control standards, and is inclusive and accessible to be used by young people with quite severe physical needs.

Augmented reality tracking (similar to scanning a QR code) can be affected by lighting, reflective surfaces etc. so finding a board material that works, and also can be repeatedly wiped clean with bleach has been an interesting and unexpected part of the research and development!

In terms of accessibility and inclusion, to play the game and interact with the augmented reality gameplay, players need to move their phone or tablet around to reach the different parts of the board, and some of the scenarios and content have needed to be redeveloped to be sensitive and appropriate to these audiences. We overcome challenges like these by co-producing with specific groups of young people and staff members to ensure as many barriers are removed as possible. 

What are your hopes and ambitions for the future?

Through this project, we are really coming to understand the gaps that exist for young people with chronic health conditions and for those struggling with mainstream education. Our hope is to move from piloting within the NHS to securing contracts to facilitate the adoption of Dragons of Afterlands, and then develop some of our other prototypes into fully-fledged game-based tools for healthcare staff to use with adolescents in healthcare settings.

We are also in the planning stages of developing a strong community of practice focused on adolescents, for those supporting young people in healthcare, such as Health Play Specialists, Clinical Psychologists, Occupational Therapists, and Head Teachers within alternative provisions.

What advice do you have for other innovators?

If you are planning on selling to the NHS, plan and budget for medical device registration,  co-produce your innovations with staff and users from the outset, and make the problem drive the innovation, rather than the other way round.

Finally, understand the care pathway your innovation fits into and what outcomes you need to demonstrate to convince commissioners your innovation is worth a try.  And enjoy the journey!