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SuperBetter

Topic Areas
Scientific Rating
Child Welfare Relevance
Digital Mental Health Interventions (Youth/Young Adult)
3  — Promising Research Evidence
Medium

About This Program

Target Population: Youth & young adults ages 11-25

For children/adolescents ages: 11 – 25

Program Overview

SuperBetter is designed to improve mental health, resilience, self-efficacy and the success of clients & students. SuperBetter is an easy-to-teach mindset intervention. The SuperBetter Mindset is a mental framework that uses the psychology of game play in all of life. SuperBetter can be implemented using a curriculum, a tech-enabled solution for classrooms/groups, or a mobile/web app. Educators, parents, therapists & social workers can help their students, children, and clients learn the SuperBetter methodology and then use the methodology as a coaching framework to empower mental health, resilience, self-efficacy, social-emotional skills, and success.

Program Goals

The goals for SuperBetter are:

  • Overcome obstacles
  • Achieve their goals
  • Reduce anxiety
  • Reduce depression
  • Improve resilience
  • Improve self-efficacy
  • Improve social-emotional skills
  • Improve school behaviors, success, attendance, and retention
  • Improve social-emotional skills

Logic Model

View the Logic Model for SuperBetter.

Essential Components

The essential components of SuperBetter include:

  • Mindset intervention
  • Easy-to-teach SuperBetter Mindset is a mental framework that uses the psychology of game play to overcome obstacles in all areas of life
  • SuperBetter methodology includes 7 gameful rules that integrate techniques from:
    • Cognitive-behavioral therapy
    • Positive psychology
    • Health behavior change best practices
  • SuperBetter can be taught using:
    • A curriculum, tech-enabled product for groups/classrooms
      • A web-based Host account can be used to:
        • Add group members as players
        • Form squads of players
        • Host SuperBetter challenges for them
      • Squad challenges can be created by the host:
        • 5-days of activities and a goal (epic win)
        • Access to a library of over 90 squad challenges that promote:
          • Mental resilience
          • Social resilience
          • Emotional resilience
          • Physical resilience
        • Able to create custom challenges to have squads go for any epic win they choose
      • Can use the SuperBetter gameful language in group settings to:
        • Reinforce the methodology
        • Create a safe culture of resilience and thriving
      • Squad members spend about 10 minutes a day completing the gameful activities on their SuperBetter mobile or web app
    • A digital app:
      • 1-on-1 coaching settings
      • Young person can use the Hero account on the SuperBetter app
      • The educator, social worker, therapist, or parent uses the SuperBetter methodology and language to coach the young person to identify:
        • Goals (epic wins)
        • Obstacles (bad guys)
        • Daily actions (quests)
        • Social support (allies), etc.
      • Young people can then create their own SuperBetter challenges in the app
  • The SuperBetter TED Talk by Jane McGonigal (The Game That Can Give You 10 Extra Years of Life) can be used to introduce SuperBetter and build excitement. The NY Times best-selling book, SuperBetter, The Power of Living Gamefully includes a chapter for each of the 7 rules and is a resource for therapists, social workers, parents, and educators.

Program Delivery

Child/Adolescent Services

SuperBetter directly provides services to children/adolescents and addresses the following:

  • Anxiety, depression, recovery, low resilience, low self-efficacy, low social-emotional skills, student absences, low student success, disruptive classroom behaviors
Services Involve Family/Support Structures:

This program involves the family or other support systems in the individual's treatment: The SuperBetter Mindset framework enables parents, educators, therapists, and social workers to use the SuperBetter methodology to coach and support youth and young adults.

Recommended Intensity:

One 45-minute training session, then one weekly 20-minute coaching session. The youth/young adult will spend about 10 minutes per day completing activities on the app, 5 days a week.

Recommended Duration:

Minimum 4 weeks

Delivery Settings

This program is typically conducted in a(n):

  • Adoptive Home
  • Birth Family Home
  • Foster / Kinship Care
  • Outpatient Clinic
  • Community-based Agency / Organization / Provider
  • School Setting (Including: Day Care, Day Treatment Programs, etc.)
  • Virtual (Online, Smartphone, Zoom, Telephone, Video, etc.)

Homework

SuperBetter includes a homework component:

About 10 minutes a day, 5 days a week completing activities on the SuperBetter app

Resources Needed to Run Program

The typical resources for implementing the program are:

Individual access to a smartphone, tablet, or computer, all with internet connection

Manuals and Training

Prerequisite/Minimum Provider Qualifications

There is no minimum education required for social workers or therapists to be trained on the SuperBetter methodology.

Manual Information

There is not a manual that describes how to deliver this program.

Training Information

There is training available for this program.

Training Contact:
Training Type/Location:

Training can be provided in person or over Zoom. There are also product demo videos on SuperBetter.com.

Number of days/hours:

1-hour training session

Implementation Information

Pre-Implementation Materials

There are no pre-implementation materials to measure organizational or provider readiness for SuperBetter.

Formal Support for Implementation

There is formal support available for implementation of SuperBetter as listed below:

Support is optional and provided via teleconference and email. Support can include additional coaching on how to use the SuperBetter framework, how to create custom SuperBetter challenges, or best practices to engage young people.

Fidelity Measures

There are no fidelity measures for SuperBetter.

Implementation Guides or Manuals

There are no implementation guides or manuals for SuperBetter.

Implementation Cost

There are no studies of the costs of SuperBetter.

Research on How to Implement the Program

Research has not been conducted on how to implement SuperBetter.

Relevant Published, Peer-Reviewed Research

Child Welfare Outcome: Child/Family Well-Being

"What is included the Relevant Published, Peer-Reviewed Research section?"

Bantjes, J., Hunt, X., Cuijpers, P., Kazdin, A. E., Kennedy, C. J., Luedtke, A., Malenica, I., Petukhova, M., Sampson, N., Zainal, N. H., Davids, C., Dunn-Coetzee, M., Gerber, R., Stein, D. J., & Kessler, R. C. (2024). Comparative effectiveness of remote digital gamified and group CBT skills training interventions for anxiety and depression among college students: Results of a three-arm randomised controlled trial. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 178, Article 104554. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brat.2024.104554

Type of Study: Randomized controlled trial
Number of Participants: 371

Population:

  • Age — 18–36 years
  • Race/Ethnicity — 100% South African
  • Gender — 82% Female and 18% Male
  • Status — Participants were anxious and/or depressed South African undergraduates.

Location/Institution: South Africa

Summary: (To include basic study design, measures, results, and notable limitations)
The purpose of the study was to evaluate the effectiveness of two digital interventions designed to enhance access to healthcare in under-resourced settings. Participants were randomly assigned to either Remote Group Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Skills Training (CST), SuperBetter, or a MoodFlow mood monitoring control. Measures utilized include the Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7 (GAD-7) and the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9). Results indicate that there were significantly higher adjusted risk differences in joint anxiety/depression remission at 3-months and 6-months for Remote Group CST and SuperBetter than MoodFlow and that mean combined PHQ-9/GAD-7 scores were significantly lower for Remote Group CST and SuperBetter than Mood Flow. Limitations include reliance on self-report measures and confounding variables such as exposure to other treatments and medication use.

Length of controlled postintervention follow-up: 3.5 months.

Additional References

Mallory, A. (2025, February 12). City of Mobile using ‘Super Better’ app to target at-risk youth in the community. Fox 10 News. https://www.fox10tv.com/2025/02/12/city-mobile-using-super-better-app-target-at-risk-youth-community/

Nsekwila, K. (2025). Addressing mental health challenges in children: Sansamwenje community, Isoka District, Zambia. Journal of Innovative Health Research, 1(1), 17-22. https://doi.org/10.71351/jihr.v1i1.005

Psihogios, A. M., Stiles-Shields, C., & Neary, M. (2020). The needle in the haystack: Identifying credible mobile health apps for pediatric populations during a pandemic and beyond. Journal of Pediatric Psychology, 45(10), 1106–1113. https://doi.org/10.1093/jpepsy/jsaa094

Contact Information

Keith Wakeman
Title: CEO
Agency/Affiliation: SuperBetter
Website: www.SuperBetter.com
Email:
Phone: (630) 776-0949

Date Research Evidence Last Reviewed by CEBC: January 2025

Date Program Content Last Reviewed by Program Staff: March 2025

Date Program Originally Loaded onto CEBC: March 2025