Online gaming is keeping teenagers from falling through the cracks.
“Strange times call for strange measures” Sitting in our living room playing PlayStation online with young people in theirs, is something we never imagined we’d be doing. But here we are in this unparalleled crisis of confinement in the parallel universe of online gaming, the final frontier of youth work outreach. A place where no youth worker has gone before. For this youth worker who prides himself on his ability to work through face to face contact on the streets, in the stairwells and hidden spaces where young people congregate. This is truly an unprecedented experience, but also an opportunity to think outside of the box. So why online gaming? Well why not? We are living through an emergency situation. We are asking our young people to stay at home, we want them to social distance and we also want to keep in touch, check in with them, keep our relationships with them and support them through this crisis. So we have to cut our cloth to measure. Previously our s