Recovery Cup Board Game for Families
The Recovery Cup is an educational game created to help families of persons with psychosis and the person with psychosis.
By playing the game, the ill person and their family learn useful strategies to help the ill person recover and the family cope well. The game is suitable for adults and children old enough to read (or younger with adult supervision). The game is designed to be played cooperatively and is played till everyone wins.
The cup is a metaphor for the two types of vulnerability to psychosis a person can have and how they work together. illustrates the concept of genetic versus environmental vulnerability to psychosis, and how to manage environmental vulnerability.
The Cup is also a cup of achievement, as in a trophy won when the family is working together for everyone’s well being.
All the print materials needed to create and assemble your own copy of the game are available below.
Note: the self-care tips included in the game cards have been reviewed and approved by staff at the Fraser South Early Psychosis Intervention program
- How to Assemble and play the game
- View Game Rules and Instructions
- Printable Game Rules and Instructions
Game board 
print one of these files to use as your game board, depending on which suits your printer. More detailed instructions are on the ‘instructions for assembling game’ document, above.
Game Card Files
There are two sets of cards, both are needed to play the game and all players use both types of cards.
Game cards 1(Recovery Cards) print double-sided on letter sized ‘tear-apart’ business card paper or regular paper and cut apart
Game cards 2(Caring Cards) print double-sided on letter sized ‘tear-apart’ business card paper or regular paper and cut apart. (different colour from first set would be helpful to keep the two packs separate).
Game Rules and Instructions
- The game board is unrolled an laid on a table, taping it down if needed to keep it flat
- The two packs of cards should be placed near the board, ready for play.
- Every player gets a cup and a game marker (block). The game marker is placed on the board where it says ‘Start’.
- There should be a lot of game pieces of one colour (clear), and a few of another (blue). The blue pieces represent genetic vulnerability to psychosis, the things a person is born with which makes them more likely to experience psychosis. The other pieces represent the ‘environmental factors’, which are things that happen during a person’s life, or things they do, that make it more likely they will experience psychosis.
- Each player in turn rolls the dice. The number rolled is the number of blue genetic vulnerability pieces that go in that person’s cup. The rest of the cup gets filled to the brim with the other colour of pieces. A full cup represents being ill with psychosis, and all players start out that way.
- The person who rolled the highest starts the game first, by rolling the dice again and moving their game marker along the board. They may go forward or backwards or follow any branch of the board they wish, as long as they only go one direction within a turn. This means that you can go forward or backward, but only forward or only backward in a single turn.
- When a player lands on a trophy cup or a heart cup, they pick up and read aloud a card from the matching deck and do what it says. Then their turn is over.
- The game is won when every player’s cup is less than half full.
Permission is granted to make as many copies as required of this document for non-profit educational purposes. This game was created by Sophia Kelly , DVATI for the BC Schizophrenia Society © 2006 BC Partners for Mental Health and Addictions Information. Funding for this project was provided by the BC Provincial Health Services Authority. Electronic copies of this game and instructions are also available a www.heretohelp.bc.ca This game is not suitable for children under 6 as game pieces may be a choking hazard.
