I've just put the finished touches to an
interactive online consultation game that aims to gather young people's views on training and
development for leaders and managers of services for
young people in England.
In Youth
Workforce Dream Team you get to choose your ideal team of leaders for a
youth project, and to select the sort of training you think they will need.
The team you create is entered into a
league where others can vote it up or down depending on whether they think your
leadership team is well equipped to manage a dynamic service for young people.
The choices you make, and the votes that
are cast will feed into a research report that will influence the future of
training and development opportunities for leaders and managers of services for
young people. Create your team now at http://tinyurl.com/243wr7
The consultation side of the site will be
open until 18th February 2008. (The consultation is targeted at young people - but response from managers and workers are welcome...)
The research report is being prepared by
The National Youth Agency and FPM Training for DCSF commissioned research being undertaken
by and with the full support of both CWDC and Lifelong Learning UK SSC.
Why a game?
I'm always interested in exploring different methods for making consultations accessible and available to a wide range of groups.
Sometimes a consultation needs to dig deep into a complex issue - and to empower those responding involves giving them as much information as possible. The catch is, if that information comes as a long list of written facts and figures, it's not helping make the consultation itself more accessible.
So, I've been exploring how using 'games' can help facilitate consultations in considering complex topics, but without needing everyone who responds to read stacks of background information.
Through a game, information can be made available when it is needed, and some of the 'constraints' and 'context' that otherwise need to be explicitly set out in a discussion, or at the start of a survey, can be built in to the rules of the game.
Plus - and this is an important one - games can be fun.
The Youth Workforce Dream Team Game
If you work with young people in England, it would be great if you could let them know about the game at http://tinyurl.com/243wr7.
I've also prepared a pack that can be used to run the game as a 'card game' with a group - rather than as an online game. If you think you could use that and could feed back young people's views before the 18th February then please do get in touch (timd@nya.org.uk)