Games, Teens, & Social and Emotional Learning
At iThrive Games Foundation, we prepare teens to thrive. We do this through our mission of preparing teens to thrive by meeting them where they are, and working in partnership towards a world where all have the voice, choice, and agency to reach their full potential.
We use games and game design to equip teens with the social and emotional skills they need to be healthy and resilient, tools to support and protect their mental health and well-being, systems thinking they need to recognize inequity, and meaningful opportunities to imagine and design a better world.
How we work
At iThrive, we center youth and we favor connection. We know games alone are not sufficient to support teen learning. The development of social and emotional skills happens through relationships, whether that’s teens with educators, teens with mental health professionals, and teens with their peers. With connection as the foundation, games become the medium through which the social and emotional learning occurs.
Our initiatives
Whether you’re a parent or an educator, our tools help the teen in your life to thrive. We create tools with and for teens that attend to the magnificence of their brains and support adults in creating environments where teens can thrive. We do this in three ways:
iThrive students in the classroom
iThrive Sim—a technology-enabled tool to cultivate critical thinking and decision making skills while encouraging social and emotional learning.
iThrive Curriculum—resources that help educators engage teens in deep learning while using technology to explore core content.
iThrive Studio—a co-design process where teens transform their lived experiences into games that express their perspective and can be used to help adults understand.
With teens, for teens
Playtesting — the process of gaining insight into whether the game design meets the player experience you are attempting to create — is central to our approach at iThrive.
Through playtesting, we engage in a form of co-design with teens. It’s important that they are part of the design at every stage, so we aren’t making assumptions about what they know and what they want to learn.
Ultimately, all of our initiatives, in partnership with teens and the adults who engage with them, pave the way for our evolved vision: a world where teens are seen and valued by society; where adults have tools they need to support teens’ development; where there is equal opportunity open to all, including those traditionally marginalized; and where all live healthy and purposeful lives.
Get involved
If you’d like to collaborate, please connect with us at contact@ithrivegames.org. Whether you’re new to us, or if you’re a teen who has playtested a game with us, an educator who has piloted our curriculum, or a collaborator who has supported our work, we thank you for collaborating and look forward to more games, growth, and thriving.
iThrive students and team members
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