Youth Offenders Inclusion Gaming Project

Acronym of the case:

YOGP

Web address of the case:

http://swclc.net

Country of the case:

United Kingdom

City/region:

Sheffield

Posting Date:

12 September 2008

Last Edited Date:

28 April 2009

Author:

Alex Jones (Sheffield West City Learning Centre)

inclusive | Flagship | Young Offenders

Type of initiative

Project or service

Case Abstract

Sheffield Youth Offending Service developed a programme to re-engage young offenders through educational gaming sessions. The programme worked across a spectrum of young offenders including some of the most entrenched such as those on Intensive Supervision and Surveillance Programmes. The programme begins with a session evaluating widely available games and moves on to allow the participants to create their own games using Immersive Educationâ€™s Mission Maker programme. The software requires abstract logical thinking to create satisfactory game experiences. The young people had to populate environments with props and create logic based rules about how players would interact with these elements. For example one game included a door that could not be opened unless the player approached it with a number of props from other locations within the game environment. Not only was the academic content of the work challenging but the issues explored related directly to the kinds of offender behaviour the young people exhibit. For example on separate occasions two young men added guns into their games. One removed them from his game after a discussion with the session leader and the other removed his before being confronted. Policy on this has now evolved and they may add guns but only if they add a consequence such as incarceration. The gaming was, thus, a useful vehicle for opening a discourse about the consequences of carrying weapons. The direct benefit of the use of game creation software was that the young people were able to explore difficult to reach issues around their offending behaviour in a manner that opened up dialogue and their thinking. This case has been awarded National Flagship status.

Description of the case

Domain

eInclusion

Topic

ICT and Marginalised youth

Sector

Crime, Justice and Law | Education, Science and Research | Social Services

Start date - End date

January 2008 (Ongoing)

Date operational

January 2008

Target Users

People with anti-social and criminal behavior | Young people at risk of marginalisation

Target Users Description

All participants were either enrolled at Pupil Referral Units or had not attended their host school for a significant period. As such the prognosis for continuing education or training, or securing employment was bleak. A significant proportion had diagnosed learning difficulties such as ADHD, learning disabilities such as Autism, behavioural disorders and even Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. The cohort for each session was no more than 10 young people. The programme has been run twice and has benefitted 16 young people.

Scope

Local (city or municipality)

Status

Operation

Language(s)

English

Policy Context and Legal Framework

â€œComparisons of the educational background of young people supervised by the youth justice system with the general population show that, on average, young offenders have had difficult and often poor previous experiences of education. Low attainment, persistent truancy, exclusion and Special Educational Needs are some of the most prevalent risk factors associated with offending behaviour... The correlations between education, offending and re-offending are well documented. A Mori youth survey suggests that excluded young people are committing twice as many crimes as their peers in mainstream education... According to one study, none of those who had full-time education immediately after they were released back into the community on a detention and training order were reconvicted, whereas one-third of those without such immediate provision were reconvicted... The Youth Justice Boards 2005 study of risk and protective factors associated with youth crime found considerable overlap between risk factors for youth offending and those for educational underachievement. Lack of statutory education was one of the largest factors associated with re-offending.â€ (DCSF/HO/YJB 2007)

Project Size and Implementation

Type of initiative

Training and education

Overall Implementation approach

Partnerships between administration and/or private sector and/or non-profit sector

Technology choice

Proprietary technology

Funding source

Public funding EU | Public funding national

Project size

Implementation: €5-15,000

Yearly cost:

€1-49,000

Implementation and Management Approach

The project was a partnership project involving cooperation between both public and private sectors. It drew upon existing partnerships between Sheffield West City Learning Centre and Sheffield Youth Offending Service and between the CLC and Immersive Education the private sector supplier of the software. Each young person completing the programme received a letter from Immersive Education. The CLC has a long standing relationship with Immersive Education. Sheffield Youth Offending Service brought a wealth of experience with young offenders and provided the candidates for the programme. The CLC has hosted and supported the development of previous Youth Offending programmes within the CLC building. So the partnerships were mature as was the method of using ICT as a tool for managing young offenders. What was very experimental and quite risky was the combination of young people under Intensive Supervision and Surveillance Programmes with game design software.

Technology solution

The technology employed was a proprietory product developed by Immersive Education called Missionmaker. The only other possible choice for the project was a piece of open source software called Gamemaker developed by Prof. Mark Overmars of Utrecht University. Unfortunately this software was felt to require too much initial familiarisation and training before any results could be seen and was therefore not suitable for the learners who did not have great reserves of patience.

Impact, innovation and results

Impact

The young people remained calm and cooperative with each other and with staff both during the session and during the informal lunch and refreshment breaks. They stayed focussed on the task and were quietly keen to return to continue after their breaks. The young people progressed to the point where they took ownership of their games-making and tried out their own ideas. They were willing to improve through trial and error â€“ and learned from their mistakes. All improved significantly in their ability to articulate the processes required to build actions into the game. The games produced have been of a high quality and have involved complex construction on the part of the young people. On separate occasions two young men added guns into their games; one removed them from his game after a discussion with the session leader and the other removed his before being confronted. Policy on this has now evolved and they may add guns but only if they add a consequence such as incarceration. The gaming was, thus, a useful vehicle for opening a discourse about the consequences of carrying weapons. They appreciated and respected the comfortable and professional surroundings at the City Learning Centre. Feedback from the young people was distinctly positive showing engagement with the gaming and a willingness to analyse and put forward contributions.

Track record of sharing

The project has been independently evaluated by the South Yorkshire eLearning Project. The Project provided the funding that allowed the project to be set up. The evaluation is to be published. Conference presentations have also explored the project benefits and lessons learned, for example a Sheffield conference in October 2008 entitled "Reaching out and re-engaging with technology" will include a presentation on this project. The project evaluation is available online at the City Learning Centre website (http://www.nwsclc.net/content/view/170/50/) making wider dissemination possible.

Lessons learnt

Lesson 1 - The young people are positive about the programme and there have been some notable individual success stories where it is difficult to identify an alternative which would have had the same impact. Lesson 2 - The development of a shorter, more flexible, rolling-programme is being investigated and looks likely to be of even more relevance to a greater number of young offenders and disengaged young people. The programme team believe the approach would work equally well with offenders and ex-offenders aged 16+ years. Lesson 3 - The potential to introduce and address issues of actions and their consequences is powerful. The project would appear to be well placed to meet the demands of recent central government policy developments combining as it does accredited skills development, supported progression to further education or return to education, developing links with employers and concepts of restorative justice.

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