A London-based Children’s mental health games developer has launched a new platform for parents and teachers offering access to multi-award winning mental wellness and educational resources that prioritise mental wellness across the curriculum.
Since publishing a series of free home learning kits to support children’s education throughout the COVID19 lockdown, the start-up, Book of Beasties saw nearly ten thousand downloads from families and schools worldwide.
Oisin Bishenden, ex-teacher and chief operating officer of Book of Beasties, said: “With the unique situation and risks to the mental wellness of children across the UK embodied by the closure of schools and other restrictions to social support networks that acted to safeguard against infection during the COVID-19 outbreak, we sought to provide free resources to support both parents and teachers in prioritising mental health across the curriculum.”
Recognising the need for easier access to mental wellness themed PSHE materials at home as well as at school, the team behind Book of Beasties: The Mental Wellness Card Game teamed up with fully UK trained teachers and experts to create new, focused content.
Each learning kit is a self-contained package providing hours of learning in both curriculum subjects and mental wellness exercises with cross-curricular links drawn as widely as possible. All of the learning has been dual designed to be delivered both at home and in the classroom to allow cohesion between parents and teachers in supporting young people.
Since its launch, Book of Beasties: The Mental Wellness Card Game has been recognised by healthcare industry awards, and used by thousands of children in the UK as well as in Ty Hafan Children’s Hospice, and Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital school.
Head of psychological services at Great Ormond Street, Mandy Bryon, said: “I am very impressed with Book of Beasties, I have not come across something so engaging for young children that enables ease of discussion about feelings in an acceptable and positive way.”
Oisin concluded: “By gathering the expertise of specialists and teachers from across the curriculum we built learning kits that were used across the English speaking world both inside classrooms and at home. Now we plan on building on this success to provide a more permanent solution to a large gap in education provision.
“Making it through the lock down period was only the beginning for our children; now the task of supporting them back into schools under the new normal begins.”
Book of Beasties’ subscription platform is now live after a very successful beta stage, with a special offer for early bird subscribers.
