Two past VMH projects get turned into actual products, ready for testing
The Visualising Mental Health Project is a lot of things. It is a communication design student assignment. It is a science communication exercise. It is a mental health promotion project.
But it is also about genuine product development.
All of us want to see the best student projects developed to the point of product development, testing and ultimately sale.
That is why I am super vibed that two projects from previous year students have undergone the transformation to actual products which will be tested.
A big shout out to the Office of the Chief Psychiatrist and SA Mental Health Commission for pockets of funding that have helped these get these products to development.
let’s deal with it
Let’s deal with it is a card game based on the principles of cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT). Players compete to create the most interesting, funny or realistic scenario using a set of cards that cover situation, personality, thoughts, feelings and actions. Whilst played for fun, the card game requires people to consider the relationships between these elements and thus provides an interesting avenue through which to describe CBT. The game can be played for fun, or used as a clinical tool.
A big thanks to Melinda and Ethan (one of the original team that developed the idea) for taking the card game.
We are currently getting ethics approval to provide the card game to psychologists for testing in their clinical practice.
Tók Tea
Originally called Amitea, the idea behind Tok Tea is that sharing a cup of tea is a time for people to talk. Tok Tea bags contain questions on the tea-bag label that invite the drinker to reflect on an event in their life, and maybe share it with the person with whom they are sharing that cup of tea. You can choose your teabag on the basis of your mood, and the questions act to explore that mood a little further.
We are currently getting ethics approval to trial the tea in Aged Care homes.
If either of these projects sounds interesting to you and you’d like to get involved in their further development, please contact me: Gareth.furber@gmail.com