A Minecraft Server for Neurodiverse Children & Young People
About us
Creative Active Lives have been running weekly Minecraft Clubs since 2019 in partnership with the fantastic Club Minecraft. We have now created our own private server, for our weekly bookable Autism Friendly Minecraft clubs, and club members can have 24/7 access to our play world and mini games. The Admin team make sure no griefing, and players builds are protected.
Current hosted online sessions: Minecraft socials, suitable for any level, can be loud. Tuesday is usually quieter.
- Tuesdays 6-7pm
- Thursdays 6-7pm
In Person Minecraft Clubs:
- Saturday mornings, 1030-1230 every other Saturday until March 2025, in our LANworld – you can join us in person at Rowley Learning Campus, B65 9AN
What we do
Home Ed Sessions
Weekly Small Group Social Build & Play Sessions
Coding in Minecraft Sessions
Mini Games
Redstone Sessions
Command Block Classes
How to Stream on YouTube sessions
Parent/Carer Sessions
Membership to a secure, private Minecraft
Server to play with old and new friends
Our History
As our weekly Minecraft Clubs have grown over the years, we have seen how the children have benefitted and grown in confidence, leadership, made new friends, learned new skills, and have done some amazing things as a result of their growing confidence and enthusiasm.
We have created Creative Active Lives’ own private, secure Minecraft Server. This is a private Minecraft World that players who are manually approved by the Creative Active Lives team can join, and safeguarding is at the forefront of what we do. We have an SMP world, Creative world, Mini Games, SkyBlock, Dungeons, Build Challenges, A Calm world, more games in development, and all players can protect their builds.
How it works
Children use Zoom to chat, and camera/microphone on is optional – if they prefer to use in game chat and just listen to the Zoom that’s fine.
Everyone joins the Minecraft LAN world and plays together in a secure private whitelisted server.
We also have a private Discord for over 13s and parents to communicate outside of the hosted sessions. Please note this is not monitored 24/7.
Classes and Safety
We will provide the opportunity for children to take part in classes in coding, design, command blocks, Redstone and more.
Our weekly sessions are led by DBS checked, experienced tutors. These are inclusive and autism friendly and aimed at ages 7-16, with sessions in development for older players. We plan to do sessions for older teenagers, adults, and parents or carers who want to be able to talk about Minecraft to their kids, understand online safety in gaming, and learn how to play Minecraft with them.
MineMania membership allows players access to the server outside of session times, with a few Member perks. It also allows access to our bookable hosted sessions, and password protected members only forum to allow children to leave messages for each other safely to find friends to team up with challenges, report problems, and submit requests and suggestions.
We have controls in place to prevent griefing and stealing of stuff, and members must agree to our Code of Conduct to be able to join MineMania.
Testimonials
These sessions are an absolute lifeline to parents and children. For a socially awkward, lonely child there are not many places in today’s society where they can just be themselves- here, they can. They can play without fear of being ridiculed or judged, are welcomed wholeheartedly and can just be themselves. For parents- it means they can breathe for those 2 hours, content in the knowledge that their child is not only safe, but very very happy. These mine mania and meet up sessions are the closest thing my child has had to having a friend, and better yet, it’s not just one friend, it’s a group of them. The ethos behind Rachel’s philosophy that every child should have a chance to play is so simple, yet brilliant. It’s simplicity should not underestimate it’s vital importance- I can tell you first hand, having a child who can get through a day at school and all the bullying that comes with it, just because they have a Saturday club meet up the following day, is priceless
A was born with Spina Bifida and Corpus Callosum Agenesis. He was later assessed and formally given a diagnosis of autism. The panel did also observe that A struggles cognitively and may have learning difficulties. Although not formally diagnosed with pathological demand avoidance (PDA), his neurologist observed his challenging behaviour during an appointment and noted that he presents with symptoms of pathological demand avoidance. With numerous and frequent hospital appointments, scans, tests, assessments, interventions, surgery etc since birth, A has endured beyond what any child could be expected to go through, but it has either caused or contributed to his generalised anxiety. His neurosurgeon has also suggested that A could have cerebral palsy, as he has a very high muscle tone. Because of all of the above, we took a decision to home educate A to ensure all his needs (physical, mental, emotional and medical) would be met and he would be able to receive the best education honed specifically for him. Literacy is a real struggle for A, and teaching him to read and write in a traditional way is impossible. Between his learning difficulties and PDA, we were needing an alternative way of developing literacy. And this is where Minemania has become such a major educational tool for us. We have noticed a fantastic improvement in letter recognition, and lately too with sight words. He has even started understanding some of the chat content with his Minemania friends by recognising words and inferring the content. And just last week he had been replying back by sounding out and attempting words! This is by far the most positive impact on his literacy, as it is not perceived as a demand and he is happy to engage. Due to anxiety, sensory avoidance and his other various issues, he struggles with meeting people, forming friendships and maintaining relationships. He has found the twice weekly online Minemania sessions and fortnightly Saturday sessions absolutely fantastic to be able to make friends in a non judgemental and supportive environment where he feels accepted and just like everyone else. He will often say things like "I love my friends" or "I'm so excited to see my friends". Without doubt, Minemania sessions are the highlight of the week for A, and we are so grateful to have this for him. In fact the sessions are so important to us, that we make the hour and a half journey to Rowley Regis to ensure A doesn't miss out.
I play Minecraft because it's fun. My favourite thing to do is building. I'm most proud of my own world where I've built a rollercoaster and a great campsite. I go to Minemania because I like playing Minecraft with other people. I think playing with others has improved my mental health because I've made new friends. The Wizard Keen sessions are fun and I've really liked learning how to build better. I would feel sad if Minemania ended because I look forward to the sessions.
