This board game was created to help families that people recovering from psychosis and their family learn about self care and managing the illness in recovery. By playing the game as a family, all family members can learn how to reduce stress and other environmental factors to promote recovery and well being. The game is cooperative, easy to follow for persons with cognitive impairment, and the group wins when all players win by reducing their environmental stressors and triggers.
Engaging the whole family in a creative task can be helpful to get people of different ages and abilities working together as a team. It was developed as part of a project for the BC Schizophrenia Society and BC Partners for Mental Health and Addictions Information, with consultation from staff at the Fraser South Early Psychosis Intervention program. The initial game design used imagery of two coffee cups, a ‘recovery cup’ and a ‘caring cup’, combined with the stress-vulnerability theory of schizophrenia, to enable families to explore self-care for persons with psychosis and their families in a cooperative game environment. The game was re-imaged for a BC First Nations audience, with design direction from indigenous family support workers, to re-theme as a game about all being in the same canoe together, and filling up baskets instead of cups.
Both versions of the game are now used within the Strengthening Families Together program as delivered in Indigenous communities and generally within in BC.
Please see below for a link to the game on the BC Schizophrenia Society website. Sophia Kelly of Tailored Tech created the concept, game board, cards, rules and assembly instructions, along with all related design. Sophia has professional graduate-level training and experience as an art therapist, and used that training and experience to design the game as a cooperative therapeutic task for family groups. Her work on the Recovery Cup was featured in the May 2006 BC Art Therapy Association Journal
With the instructions and files linked below, families and professionals will be able to create their own physical copy of the game to use. http://www.bcss.org/2006/05/08/the-recovery-cup-board-game-for-families/
In 2016 we were hired to create a first nations adapted version of the game. The files are below:
Recovery Cup Instructions 2016- 2016 Vulnerability Cards FN
- 2016 Caring Cards FN
- Recovery Cup Board FNE
Sophia has helped us maximize the use of our website, greatly improving communications internally between our provincial network of members, staff and volunteers, as well as externally with professionals and the general public. She has helped us quantify and evaluate our services by being available to assist provincial staff with technical matters.
In addition, she has done an excellent job of managing a number of important projects, always doing excellent work that is completed in a timely fashion.
An intelligent and clear communicator, Sophia has provided valuable advice and generous assistance far above and beyond what can be written in a formal contract.
I would highly recommend her services to anyone.
~Jane Duval, Executive Director, BC Schizophrenia Society
