YOUTH CARE KNOWLEDGE EXCHANGE THROUGH ONLINE SIMULATION GAMING

Book excerpt: Youth care multi-disciplinary networks need flexible, interactive and attractive tools and methods for knowledge exchange in view of timely, effective and durable help in complex parenting problem situations. Social media, virtuality, simulation and gaming gain an increasing significance in the way people share information, learn and organize themselves. This leads to the question whether youth care practice is ready to adopt some online practicalities for network exchange. This design study describes model development and model appreciation of online role-play simulation gaming as a time, pace and place independent way to share expertise, information and knowledge among the actors in youth care practice. The results show that youth care professionals think that simulation gaming is relevant and convenient to unravel difficult issues, to elaborate network strategies, and to jointly reflect on intervention. The research is unique in domains of youth care intervention and in game theory. The singularity of contexts and actors is taken as starting point in a cross-over of game design and behavioral science. Online role-play simulation gaming leads to a better understanding of complexity in youth care situations and to a greater awareness of network capacities and capabilities and helps to establish accountability of choices of intervention.