Maritime City: using serious gaming to deliver child protection training

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to discuses the development and application of Maritime City, a developing virtual urban community created by the University of Greenwich to supplement the delivery of child protection training.

Design/methodology/approach

Maritime City is a “serious game” developed by the University of Greenwich to deliver child protection training to health and social care professionals working with children and their families. This discussion paper will consider the practice landscape for these professionals and their training needs for working with families where children are at risk of harm. This paper will also consider some of the innovative pedagogical approaches to providing this training through the use of a serious game. Finally, this paper will also share some of the thinking behind the work and several of the learning activities that have been used with students.

Findings

Maritime City offers a safe, new medium to explore and reflect upon child protection assessment in a family situation. It offers health and social care professionals, at all stages of their careers, a unique opportunity to evaluate child protection issues. Amongst its advantages, Maritime City gives professionals involved in child protection the opportunity to evaluate and re-evaluate a case without putting children or service users at risk. As the game is in the early stages of use further evaluations are required to discern its effects on practice.

Originality/value

Maritime offers a unique opportunity of completing a child protection home visit using a range of tools to help participants draw on their own experiences and those of others to prepare them for working with children and families.

Citation

Davies, J. (2014), "Maritime City: using serious gaming to deliver child protection training", Advances in Dual Diagnosis, Vol. 7 No. 1, pp. 34-42. https://doi.org/10.1108/ADD-11-2013-0027