The Bridge

The Bridge is a unique program disrupting the potential link between excessive online gaming and gambling harm.

During rolling Covid school and community lockdowns in 2020 / 2021, Kids Thrive ran a unique project co-designing a creative prevention and early intervention program with pre-adolescent kids to raise awareness of the addictive nature of gaming and potential links to gambling harm.

The outcome – a kit of animations, creative learning activities and reflective discussion starters – will be available online to schools throughout Victoria in 2023.

‘We found that the loot boxes in almost half (45%) of the 22 games we analysed met the criteria to be considered psychologically similar to gambling, even though they are rated as appropriate for adolescent players under the age of consent for gambling.’

The Conversation, June 28, 2018

The Bridge is the latest in our ten-year legacy of working with children aged 0-12, co-designing creative programs to empower children to take positive action for change in their lives and their communities.

International research shows that kids as young as nine are already gambling and links between this behaviour and excessive online gaming have been found. The Bridge disrupts this link in pre-adolescent children.

The development phase of this project brought together Kids Thrive artists and students from Altona North Primary School to co-design a series of creative prevention and early intervention learning resources. These online resources are designed to help children identify risky behaviours and develop self-control strategies, building protection from future gambling harm. These creative education tools have been developed for use by teachers and community educators.

The National Health Service, UK, has confirmed the opening of a new treatment centre, alongside up to 14 new NHS gambling clinics nationwide, to address significant mental ill health linked to addiction – January 2020

Funding for the The Bridge project came from the Victorian Responsible Gambling Foundation’s Prevention Partnerships Program, which aims to mitigate gambling harm through a range of community education and prevention programs; and Creative Victoria’s Creative Learning Partnerships Program (CLPP), which aims to partner schools and artists to deliver creative learning projects.

The Bridge creative resource kit will be available to schools and the public from the second half of 2022.

The Bridge creative resource kit includes:

Series of short animations
Creative learning activities
Reflective conversation starters
Teachers’ background resources

Meet The Bridge development team

Andrea Lemon and Andrea Rieniets – Lead Artists

Andrea Lemon and Andrea Rieniets partnered with the following extraordinary project artists and year 6 students at Altona North Primary School to bring The Bridge to life.