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UPDATE 19th December 2018
Apart of Me is now available for iOS and Android!
See our https://apartofme.app for more details.
Thank you to all our backers, supporters and volunteers. Apart of Me would never have become a reality without you all.
UPDATE 18th November 2018
Apart of Me is now available for pre-order from the App Store and coming soon to the Google Play Store. See our https://apartofme.app for details.
UPDATE 8th November 2017
Our campaign target has been reached and we will soon be starting to work on the next phase of development. If you would like to donate to our work the best way is now via the official Apart of Me Donations page.
UPDATE 24th October 2017
Today we reached our initial target of £30,000. We are dancing off the walls. Thank you so much for your support so far.
Now we are very excited to announce our first Stretch Goal: The Emotion Explorer.
For just £6,000 more we will be able to create this new feature in the game.
This feature will be an interactive game within the Apart of Me platform that encourages the user to develop emotional literacy around their grief, and develop strategies to find some peace within their emotions.
Users will help their character find a large net hidden somewhere on the island, we will populate the island with scores of multicoloured dancing butterflies which the users will be able to gently catch. Each butterfly will relate to a specific emotion, and will contain age-appropriate content that will help the young person build emotional literacy around grief. Users will be able to take each butterfly they catch back to the Cave and set it loose so it can find similar stories based on that emotion.
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Hi. I'm Jamie.
I've been a Young Advisor to the Apart of Me project since it began. My dad died 2 years ago and it really affected me: I got kicked out of school, started hanging out with the wrong crowd, I felt depressed and hopeless. Since being involved in this project, I've started a course in Graphic Design at college and my life is getting back on track. I wish I'd had something like Apart of Me to guide me when my dad was ill. But I'm so happy to know that other young people like me in the future will have Apart of Me to help them find a way through their grief. Let me show you what the problem is, what we've done so far, and what we are going to do in the future.
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Apart of Me solves one of the hardest problems any parent can ever face: How to help your children grieve?
Imagine having to tell your children you have 6 months left to live. Is there a more difficult conversation a parent can have?
Here are some of the problems Apart of Me is helping to solve...
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Please go to our faq section below if you want to know the references for these stats above.![]()
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We're a small, fast-moving team on a mission. Since winning a grant from the Nominet Trust, we've been squeezing the value out of every penny, and have achieved so much already.
When we started out, we formed a group of brilliant advisors: bereaved young people, parents and professionals. We realised there were some core aspects we needed to create:
- A peaceful, safe virtual world that a young person can explore in their own time, at their own pace.
- A way for users to find safe and meaningful ways to connect with other bereaved young people to reduce the sense of isolation.
- A quest for the player to help explore their relationships in the real world, asking them to interact with loved ones in helpful and healing ways.
- Evidence-based therapeutic exercises to help users understand and find peace with their emotions.
- Helpful perspectives on grief and death in an engaging format.
These aims have translated directly into Apart of Me's core features:
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The inside of the cave is a mysterious place for catching fireflies, exploring emotions, and hearing user stories from other young people around the world..
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Each day, a new bottle arrives on the island, containing a quest for the hero. These quests encourage face-to-face connections with your parent(s), so that you can co-curate a beautiful treasure-chest of memories, and check in with these memories whenever you want. This feature is a digital version of the 'memory box' practice commonly used in grief counselling.
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Find some peace with our mindfulness meditations designed to support the grieving process.
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What happens when we die? Explore this big question by searching for the mysterious rocks on the island, listen to perspectives old and new, and develop your own understanding.
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We made our prototype available for evaluation by interested organisations and professionals as well as young people and families in a variety of situations. We were stunned by how much demand we uncovered.
74% people would recommend the existing prototype to a family or young person who had someone close to them with a life-limiting illness.
81% would recommend it with only one or two minor changes.
We now want to take the most successful aspects of our prototype and grow them into something amazing. We want to make the Apart of Me experience freely available for whoever needs it.
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And here is the journey we have been on to get to this very exciting point:
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We want to bring Apart of Me to young people who need it the most. To do this we are first of all focusing our attention on The Cave, the feature which created the most buzz during our user-testing. We plan on developing this into a rich, supportive environment in which young people can hear and interact with stories from others in a similar situation.
Apart of Me is a not-for-profit project. And, we are a very cost-effective organisation. We have very low admin costs.
We promise you we will make the very most of each and every penny you donate, ensuring the money is spent on creating a tool that genuinely works, and making sure we get it in the hands of those young people around the world who need it the most.
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These are some of the really exciting things we want to do in the future...
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Whether or not you’re in a position to make a financial pledge at the moment, we’d still really value your help in sharing the message about the Apart of Me mission and this crowdfunding campaign.
You can do this by sharing this page via social media, or mentioning Apart of Me to anyone you know you think might be interested.
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We have had some really good press so far, as well as some amazing testimonials from young people, parents, and professionals who have tested Apart of Me.
View our
press page for more details.
And here are just a few words that people have said about us:
FAQ
Who is this app for?
Young people who have lost a parent or other close relative, also those who have someone important in their life with a terminal illness.
We have designed the app for ages 8+.
Where can I get the app?
The current prototype is available for evaluation by interested organisations, professionals and individuals. If you would like to test the game please get in touch at hello@bounce.works.
You can see a short walkthrough of the prototype below:
What devices will this app work on?
Apart of Me supports iOS and Android, phones and tablets.
How do I know this app is safe to play?
Apart of Me has been designed by our co-founder Louis, an experienced Child Psychotherapist (and former Child Protection Social Worker), along with a team of expert advisors. The game features checkpoints, moments at which the Oracle suggests that the young person check-in with someone if they are feeling particularly low or vulnerable. We also include phone numbers such as Childline at these key points.
This tool is in no way a substitute for professional support where that is required. It can be used on its own where appropriate, or it can be used as an adjunct to professional support.
There is currently no interaction allowed between the young person and other people through the device. You can learn more about our careful thinking around safety here.
What does the research say?
This app is based on a body of research that shows talking with children openly and honestly but in an age-sensitive way about death and dying can prevent them from developing entrenched, complex feelings around their loss.
You can find out more about the evidence-base this game is based on as well as the stats behind the problem graphic above here.
Where can I find more information how this game works?
We have produced a parents and carers guide which contains more information about the techniques used within the app and the information contained within it. You can find this guide here.
Is this a not-for-profit project?
Yes. Apart of Me is a not-for-profit project. We feel strongly this resource should be made freely available to those young people who need it at the point at which they need it. Although Bounce Works is set up as a social enterprise, Apart of Me is being run as charitable initiative. All your donations will go to a restricted fund under the auspices of Prism the Gift Fund, charity no. 1099682. We have a contract in place with Prism the Gift Fund that enables this project to be deemed charitable according to UK law. Once you have pledged, you will receive a Gift Aid declaration form from us. You can find more details here.
Great! Does that mean I can claim Gift Aid?
Yes! As long as you are a UK taxpayer, you can claim Gift Aid. Once you have donated, we will send you a simple link to fill in your Gift Aid declaration.
Where can I follow you?
You can find us on Facebook and Twitter.
How can I donate now that this campaign is over?
If you would like to donate to our work the best way is now via the official Apart of Me Donations page.
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