The Guardian

The Guardian is an award winning video game about dating violence. You are in control of a guardian and are responsible for keeping three young people free from relationship abuse: 13 year old Sarah, 18 year old Jack, and 21 year old Kim.

Observe the scenario and then navigate through the complex social lives of these young people in order to inform them about the unhealthy behavior they are experiencing.

There are many scenarios and three young people who need your help . . . can you help all three?

Screenshots

Thumbnail screenshot of The Guardian video game

Screenshot of The Guardian video game

Thumbnail screenshot of The Guardian game about relationships.

Screenshot of The Guardian game about relationships.

Thumbnail screenshot of The Guardian game to stopTDV

Screenshot of The Guardian, the 2014 award winning video game to prevent teen dating violence.

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Teen Dating Violence and video games

Teen dating violence is the physical, sexual, or psychological/emotional violence in a dating relationship. Although the label 'teen dating violence' implies that it only applies to teenagers it also encompasses tweens (11 and 12 year olds) as well as young adults in their early twenties.

The majority of the video games on JAGga.me focus on teen dating violence and come from an annual video game design contest sponsored by Jennifer Ann's Group, the sponsor of JAGga.me. The Life.Love. Game Design Challenge has been rewarding video game developers for producing video games about teen dating violence since 2008.

Video games have been shown to be effective in changing attitudes about abusive behavior, increasing knowledge of dating violence, and increasing awareness of teen dating violence. "'It's like you're actually playing as yourself': Development and Preliminary evaluation of 'Green Acres High', a serious game-based primary intervention to combat adolescent dating violence" from CAVA shares their success in using a video game to change attitudes about abusive behavior in the UK, Sweden, Germany, and Belgium.

Changing attitudes about teen dating violence and increasing awareness is critical to preventing future abuse. Teen dating violence has been shown to be linked to a number of unhealthy behaviors including:

increased alcohol and drug use

increased teeenager preganancies

dropping out of school

greatly increased chance of being in an abusive relationship as an adult.

Jennifer Ann's Group produces video games as an effective tool to prevent dating violence through awareness, education, and advocacy. To learn more about Jennifer Ann's Group's use of video games to prevent violence visit JenniferAnn.org.

You can read more about Jennifer Ann's Group use of video games to prevent dating violence in the journal article written by Jennifer Ann's Group Executive Director "Gaming Against Violence: A Grassroots Approach to Teen Dating Violence" (subscription) in the August 2014 issue of Games for Health Journal.

Jennifer Ann's Group has also conducted its own research (2016) into the effectiveness of their games. Their findings show that the majority of participants showed a change in attitude about negative relationship beliefs in only 20 - 45 minutes. This research has not yet been published but once it is this will be updated with a link to the publication. Please sign up to be notified of this and other items of interest regarding the efforts of Jennifer Ann's Group.

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