A Game for Helen

Help us create a very special computer games suite for the young people of Helen and Douglas House, an organisation who provide respite, emergency and end of life care for children and young adults with life-shortening conditions.

Download a project summary (550k pdf file)

What is the Game for Helen project?

It’s now widely acknowledged that young people can make remarkable gains in terms of their self-esteem, motivation and socialisation through the use of appropriate video game technology.

However, the vast majority of these games are designed to be played by people with considerable dexterity - and often at great speed. As a result, many of the young people with disabilities at Oxfordshire's Helen and Douglas House are denied the enjoyment and community fellowship that such leisure technology can bring.

To tackle the problem requires specialist help and support. A Game for Helen will enable a specialist team of professionals to set up and support a new games suite at Helen and Douglas House that matches the young people’s specific interests and abilities. It will give them the same level of access to computer game technology as everyone else - and let them get more fun out of life!

A Game for Helen will commence in November 2008 (in time for Christmas) and will continue until April 2010. SpecialEffect will work in partnership with the staff and young people at Helen and Douglas House to identify the range of games and equipment required. The relevant leisure technology then will be purchased and installed at Helen House by the SpecialEffect team. They will then provide initial training for staff on how to use the equipment.

Following this training, SpecialEffect will provide 18 months of ongoing support to ensure that the staff feel sufficiently proficient and confident to make the most of this technology for the young people they care for.

A year into the 18-month project (Nov 2009), a review will take place to consolidate a strategy that will build on the achievements of the project once it is completed. New games and assistive technology become available all the time, and the review will focus on how best to ensure that the young people will gain maximum benefit from such developments on an ongoing basis.

 

Helen's story

Helen, who’s eleven, has been a visitor to Helen House since she was very young. She’s a bright girl with a rare metabolic disorder, and she finds it very difficult to control her body well enough to operate any of the usual devices which people use to play computer games. In fact, any kind of movement, including speech, can trigger a flurry of involuntary movement. For her, speaking or moving any of her limbs is difficult, tiring and uncomfortable.

The Game for Helen project will provide Helen and others with a computer games suite that includes a special gaze-controlled computer. All they’ll need to do is to move their eyes, and they’ll be able to drive a racing car, create music or play games.

Helen is pictured above with her brother playing noughts and crosses with her eyes.