By Art Wolinsky
So far I’ve given you two interactive Flash activities to help you begin “the talk” about sexual predators with your children and I promised to give you a preview of a game we are creating to measure a child’s vulnerability to the ten ploys used by sexual predators.
The game was created by our partner charity, the Child Safety Research and Innovation Center and is called Sydney Safe-Seeker and the Incredible Journey Home. It’s actually suite of products focused on “Street Proofing” the child. The core of the package is the game which was created using Adobe Director, but it includes record keeps, lessons, activity sheets, and other material.
Designed for ages 5-10, it’s a role-playing adventure style game with numerous interactions that lead up to a potentially unsafe situation. Sydney and his friends are sucked through a worm hole and have to find four warp stoned in order to come home. During their journey th4e children are asked to make decisions based on game scenes that were developed to mirror real and sometimes dangerous situations.
As they play the game audio and video feedback help teach them about the wisdom of their decisions. As the same time their actions are being tracked and can later be reported to teachers or parents. Their actions determine which ploys and to what extent children are vulnerable to predators.
The value of this initiative is twofold: first, it teaches young children to incorporate street proofing into their daily lives, giving them an essential skill, which will protect them and the children they play with and second, it provides all of the community stakeholders around the child with the best safety practices to convey to children as well as materials and supplementary resources to help these caregivers and safety professionals convey these messages.
Here are just a few snips from the game.