The School of Social Work at Arizona State University’s downtown campus has integrated “Brianna’s World”, a 3D video game, into the classroom to expose students to real life social work experiences.
The game provides a role-playing opportunity for students where they can take on tasks as a social worker. They are allowed to select their avatar and given the opportunity to pick their skin tone, eyes, hair and clothing, according to Judy Krysik, Center Director and Associate Professor at the Center for Child Well-Being.
The video game is centered around a home visit, a common process that social workers are exposed to within the field.
In the game, students are given a referral for a 15-year-old girl named Brianna, who is having difficulty in school. They must collect information during a home visit to start developing an assessment.
After the visit, the student social worker reports back to their supervisor, collects more information and submits a final report.
The School of Social Work collaborated with the ASU Center for Games and Impact to create the video game simulation.
“Some of the areas that they can get in terms of the game, are how to engage with a family, how to keep confidentiality, how to write case notes, how to make ethical decisions and how to be strength-based vs deficit based,” Krysik said.
Cynthia Peters, Program Manager at ASU’s School of Social Work, said most students in the classes haven’t had a lot of experience or internships within the field, so the game is exposing them to what to expect in a home visit setting.
“In social work, we are always concerned with skill development,” Krysik said. “It’s a challenge because our major way of developing skills is through field internship experience, and it’s almost unfair to the students and unfair to the people being served to have them be the learning ground.”
The game is played in field instruction classes where students focus on ethical dilemmas and how to approach them within different contexts of social work.
Ivelisse Lopez-Gonzalez, an instructor at the School of Social Work, said discussions after working with the game are based around dilemmas and how students would overcome them to better identify strengths and resources needed for the client.
The game gives students a way to see the different interactions in their client’s community as well as in the office.
“Engaging with a client in a home environment is very different than engaging in an office environment,” Lopez-Gonzalez said. “When clients come to the office, it’s your space. When you go into the home, then you’re looking at the community, neighbors and actually seeing what they have on their walls — how they move around.”
The game is aimed to make students more successful when serving their clients.
“If we can help students know what to expect when they go out to a home, when they interview someone, even when they talk with their supervisor, we can hopefully have them be more successful and better serve the people who are the recipients of service,” Krysik said.
Students choose from different options for dialogue in the game based on empathy and how those options relate to the code of ethics within social work, Peters said.
Lopez-Gonzalez added the students like that the options aren’t obvious in terms of which one is more empathetic or appropriate in the situation — providing students with a challenge.
She said students are able to bring up issues that might not otherwise be brought up on paper.
“There is a lot of room to grow in terms of what is presented in the game, it definitely doesn’t cover everything, but it is so much richer than what we can do in that classroom experience,” Krysik said. “To me, this is a new way of learning and would replace some of that textbook learning.”
Lopez-Gonzalez said students were intrigued and excited to see what the game was going to be like when first introduced to it.
“We can’t continue to teach social work the way it was taught when I went to school 20 years ago,” she said. “We have to evolve with the time and the technology. I think Brianna’s World is one of those opportunities.”
Contact the reporter at asalaspo@asu.edu
