[Sub ID 4332] Game based learning and engagement app (Forrest Personnel Limited)

Submission ID: 4332
Organisation name: Forrest Personnel Limited
Contact name: Ms Paula Nankiville
State: WA
Contact email: paula.nankiville@fpi.org.au
Contact number: 0427997481

Which priority group of the Try, Test and Learn Fund does your idea support?
Young carers, Young parents, Young students at risk of long-term unemployment

What need or issue are you trying to address?
Forrest has identified that engagement and accessibility is difficult within a formal setting and there is a need to change how we deliver our service to young people. Current practise is built around mutual obligation and participants being compelled to partake to receive their income support. The particular priority groups identified in this Try, Test and Learn fund would more than likely not have mutual obligations and therefore voluntary participation is unlikely as we are perceived as working against rather than working with and the cycle of welfare reliance is well established by the time they become mutually obligated to attend our services.
The issue is engaging young people in a way that maximises their interest and preferred mode of communication to maximise the interaction.

What is your idea?
FPI will create a game-based learning and engagement app built on a digital platform that provides a virtual framework for our service delivery model. The program will have its’ own in-built social network that can be used to connect people throughout the process. This would allow for a more engaging social experience, where as well as the in-built gamified experience, a more human element can be introduced where, for example, FPI staff might issue challenges to individual participants or groups of participants and attach rewards (virtual currency) to the achievement of those goals.
Participants can share experiences and help each other creating a virtual support network that also involves the FPI team.
The game itself would be a series of challenges. As challenges are achieved, awards would be given and new challenges and content would unlock. The game can also include educational content or information as part of the challenge. The game will include avatars, so players can create their own visual virtual identity.
Through the delivery of “gamification” the young jobseeker can participate from home and FP can test the engagement and accessibility when more formal and traditional methods of engagement have been removed.