This app helps young people to manage anxiety, offers them support, and builds their resilience through the breathing techniques that appear as interactive animations. Children and young people will have the tools at their fingertips to reduce anxiety, monitor their wellbeing, and manage their mental state in between appointments and away from services.
The application is expected to be used at home or on the go as needed. It may also be deployed in a therapy session. The Breathing with Kitty app is openly available and would be helpful to many individuals, not just those children currently accessing CAMHS.
According to Anxiety UK, as many as 1 in 6 young people will experience an anxiety problem at some point in their life. Anxiety is a feeling of fear or panic and young people will usually experience anxiety in three ways:
- generalised anxiety disorder (GAD)
- panic attacks
- phobias
GAD alone affects 1 in 25 people in the UK. Young people who have GAD worry a lot of the time and this anxiety makes doing everyday things difficult.
Breathing with Kitty is aimed at young people age 10-14 who are able to take self-directed learning. Although primarily aimed at those CYP accessing services, this app could also be used as a general wellbeing tool for CYP in the same age group. The app will be publicly available and therefore is a public asset to promote self-care and methods to reduce anxiety through focus on the breath.
The prototype of Breathing with Kitty will focus on providing a solution for GAD (Generalised Anxiety Disorder).
Features of the prototype will include:
- Storage of name so that user is greeted at each login.
- Instructions on how to practice deep abdominal breathing.
- Animations of animals taking long slow inhalations and exhalations to which users will be directed to sync their own breathing. This forms the core of the animated game Breath With Me.
- The option to choose between multiple avatars - a cat, dog, and panda - for the breathing exercise.
- Soothing background music, with option to turn it off and on.
The product will be developed as a PWA for full accessibility.