Thinkfun turns their focus to the global youth mental health crisis and how play can make all the difference in protecting and strengthening children and teens. The company’s new initiative brings together stakeholders from all over the toys and games industry with the challenge: how do we build MESH (Mental, Emotional and Social Health) skills through play?
In this bi- weekly column for The Bloom Report, we will look into the different areas of this initiative. This week, we review the 8 MESH skills more in depth.
Partnering with Dr. Deborah Gilboa, ThinkFun focused on identifying the MESH skills that lead children to build resilience.
These skills have been identified that protect children and teenagers from suicidal ideation and self-harm behaviors:
These skills, called SEL (Social Emotional Learning) or MESH (Mental, Emotional and Social Health) are at the core of community and school-based initiatives in almost every developed country, including $190 billion dollars of health and education funding in the next four years in the United States alone.
“Identifying and understanding the 8 MESH skills gives us a new way to evaluate the products we create. It allows us to see toys and games through a new lens that shows us in greater detail the impact they can have on children as they play. ” Rachele Harmuth, Head of ThinkFun.
For more information on the MESH initiative, please visit www.MESHhelps.org
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