Sydney
Safe-Seeker and the Incredible Journey Home is a suite of products focused on “Street
Proofing”. It is comprised of an entertaining CD-ROM game to teach child safety; parent and educator assessment tools
that track the child’s safety knowledge; and a wealth of support materials and activity sheets for parents, educators,
police, and other child safety professionals.
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.
The
Game
Sydney Safe-Seeker and the Incredible Journey Home multimedia
game provides an interactive exploratory environment where the children ages 5 - 10 are asked to make decisions based on game
scenes that were developed to mirror real and sometimes dangerous situations.
The game is
a role-playing adventure style game with numerous interactions that lead up to a potentially unsafe situation. The player
is presented with an audio/visual decision prompt for each potentially unsafe situation that must be answered to continue
the game. Based on the player’s selected answer, the game branches to one of two outcomes showing either a safe or potentially
unsafe situation (no violence will be shown). Animation and audio will be used to provide more detailed feedback, and animation
branches provide educational outcome knowledge.
Sydney Safe-Seeker
enhances a child’s confidence and self-esteem by teaching them safe behaviors when they encounter a potentially threatening
situation by:
· Using interactive role-play scenarios
· Using animated situations that are potentially dangerous
· Teaching awareness and assertiveness skills
· Using non-threatening, non-violent
situations
· Establishing life long skills
through safe role playing
Educator’s/Parent’s
Application
Educator and
Parent applications identify particular situations where a child responds unsafely and then coaches them on how to handle
the “teachable moment” without raising the anxiety of the child. These applications contain:
· Record keeping to analyze responses
· Coaching strategies to help children improve street proofing skills
· Additional support materials and information
· Lesson plans
· Activity sheets
