I missed Weeknotes last week. I set myself the challenge of writing a post every week, for accountability, to measure my own progress, and to help keep my ADHD brain engaged, on track, not skipping or going off on (too many) tangents, and so that when I felt unproductive, and low, I can look back on these and see all that has been achieved by the team and by me so far. Here’s a recap!
Bullet points of milestones achieved this and last 2-3 weeks:
- Server PC bought, after MUCH deliberation, comparisons and consulting as its a huge investment for us. Thank you Box Computers for your help and advice as well, I ended up purchasing from there due to the specs, price, and on site warranty.
- Start date finalised for developer team, and kick off meeting planned
- Problem statement done
- Initial Research and workshops done
This is my problem statement: Our problem is that children with SEND/neurodiversities are often already isolated, are prevented from gaming online due to parental safeguarding concerns, adverse experiences while gaming online around bullying, accessing, or safeguarding that stops them gaming. Then, they withdraw from gaming with other children online. This means that they don’t get to form friendships with like minded children, access peer support, and get mental health benefits that come from developing friendship networks.
My research has been interesting, I have conducted Zoom interviews, but the most interesting and valuable research took place at Minecraft sessions for children with send i have been doing on Wednesday and Satursdays. The children played, and I spoke to parents then and we got hands on with how it works and is safeguarded.
Some were new to online gaming, some parents have not allowed it before for safety, some were youth group leaders who wanted to set up a private online community and came with their own kids to see how it worked and talk to me about it. I have to confess – doing this as our research was not intentional – I set up the inperson clubs because I knew there was a need from emails and messages I have had and I wanted to do it for the kids – all the time thinking I had better get a move on with my research. But I realised that organically this was exactly the research I needed to do. I have had SO MANY conversations with parents and group leaders during these sessions, and they are continuing every week until Xmas initially.
I’ve discussed safeguarding and their concerns, how and where their children have played online and what issues they’ve encountered, what their children get from online gaming, what the benefits and concerns are, and shown parents how to play, what Minecraft is all about, and provided demonstrations of different adaptive controllers.
It has been really interesting that the biggest need that has come out so far from the research, is the need for mental health support through counselling/mentoring in the game world where the children feel safe and that they can be themselves.
