The World Health Organization defines mental health as the foundation for physical health and well-being and effective functioning. Mental health encompasses the self and others within an environment that promotes emotional, social, and cognitive well-being. Further, improvement of mental health is not an elusive ideal to be reached, but a priority to be intentionally addressed and maintained. Traditional mental health models are not reaching the amount of children and adolescents in need of services. Technology, however, may offer a unique platform for the creation of innovative solutions to reach a broader number of children globally given the number of children connected to various forms of digital platforms. Therefore, programming that integrates the fields of child development, psychology, learning, and gaming offer a significant potential to address the pro-motion of mental health and wellness.

Chapter Contents:

• 6.1 Introduction
• 6.2 Making it playful
• 6.3 Use of Wellness Center activities
• 6.3.1 Generalizing online use to real-world scenarios
• 6.3.2 Emerging evidence
• 6.4 Platform
• 6.5 Mitigating liabilities to protect the end user
• References

Inspec keywords: serious games (computing); psychology; medical computing

Other keywords: child development; mental health models; mental health prevention; child psychology; mental health promotion; gamification; adolescents

Subjects: Biology and medical computing; Social and behavioural sciences computing; Computer games