A simulation game developed by the School of Social Work in the Eberly College of Arts and Sciences is the first game produced by a WVU program to be published on the Meta Quest app store.
The game is also the first virtual reality social work simulator of its kind, and it is the only career exploration VR experience focused on behavioral health social work for West Virginia communities.
Play Higher allows middle and high school students to experience what it’s like to be a behavioral health social worker for a day. It was published alongside the launch of the School of Social Work’s Play Higher Pioneers program, which is bringing the game to more than 750 students across 15 West Virginia schools during the 2025–26 academic year.
Members of the first cohort of the Play Higher Pioneers program received a Meta Quest 3S headset preloaded with Play Higher and other educational apps to use with their students.
“This is the first time we’ve used virtual reality to connect directly with K–12 students,” said Dr. Megan Gandy, associate professor and project lead. “It’s an engaging, hands-on way to help young people experience what social workers actually do: build relationships, solve problems, and help others.”
Play Higher was created by Gandy, principal investigator, in collaboration with Heather Cole and Jacki Englehardt, co–principal investigators, and MonRiverGames. Its development was guided by two community advisory boards, one made up of behavioral health professionals and K–12 educators, and another composed of youth ages 13 to 18. The coding, animation, and technical development were completed under contract with Roundtable Learning.
Players meet a client who is struggling and needs help. As they interact with her, students learn to earn trust, ask open-ended questions, and apply four key social work principles: self-determination, the person-in-environment perspective, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, and the use of open-ended questions.
The Play Higher Pioneers program is expected to serve approximately 2,250 students by 2028. Wave 2 of the program is now open to additional applicants who wish to bring the game to their schools or organizations. Those participants will receive the Play Higher software, a list of other free behavioral health–related games, and technical support.
“Our goal is to make this resource available to as many classrooms as possible,” said Cole, co-principal investigator. “VR gives students in rural communities the chance to explore meaningful, high-demand careers.”
The project was funded by the West Virginia Higher Education Policy Commission’s Behavioral Health Workforce Initiative, which supports efforts to strengthen the state’s mental health workforce pipeline.
West Virginia has been designated by the Health Resources and Services Administration as having a shortage of mental health professionals. Play Higher is designed to address that challenge by helping students connect early with meaningful careers.
“If we can introduce students to the idea of helping professions before they reach college, we can build a stronger pipeline of future behavioral health providers,” Gandy said. “It’s a fun experience, but it’s also a workforce strategy.”
Gandy is conducting research on the game’s effectiveness in the Play Higher Pioneers schools. Her study examines how playing Play Higher influences students’ interest in behavioral health careers and measures factors like emotional engagement, enjoyment, and motion sickness.
She will present the project and research findings at the International Virtual Reality Healthcare Conference (IVRHA) in Iceland in 2025 and Tampa in 2026.
Play Higher is available in multiple formats. Students can experience the immersive 3-D version through the Meta Quest app store, play a 2-D browser-based version on a computer, or use a non-story version that removes potentially triggering content while maintaining the same educational lessons. More information is available at https://playhigher.wvu.edu/.
The total cost of the game was $204,949, with $93,747 (45%) being funded through a U.S. Department of Labor–Employment & Training Administration grant awarded by WV Higher Education Policy Commission. The remainder ($111,201, 55%) was funded by the CARES Act to increase the behavioral health workforce.
