Project Update: The Serious Game pilot in Southwark

On the 3rd October, the Social Care Institute for Excellence, funded by the Dunhill Medical Trust and in partnership with Socialudo, United St Saviour’s charity and Housing LIN, led a pilot in Southwark, aimed at bringing together a local housing partnership to support local plans for housing for older adults.

Participants from across a number of teams at Southwark Council, local providers, developers, charities, NHS, occupational therapists and community groups played a ‘Serious Game’ designed to make the complex issue of housing for an ageing population more accessible and to support strategic thinking about the future.

The Serious Game is designed and facilitated by Socialudo with players in four teams: policy makers, developers, service providers and the community group. The teams must communicate, negotiate and compromise to improve the wellbeing of resident in the fictional (but a little like Southwark) place of ‘Hopetown’. As in real life, time moved on in the game, budgets were reduced and the number of people in housing that did not meet their needs increased.

Initial feedback from players was around the importance of partnership working and inclusion, the challenges of both reacting to immediate needs while planning longer term and the opportunity to meet key stakeholders from across Southwark and work with them on this problem.

“I think the game provides an interesting window into the problems/challenges across the whole piece so it's not just housing (…) but the whole range of suggestive interventions to meet the very varied needs of older people. We all have pieces of the puzzle. The game put them together!”

The game was followed up with a workshop on the 5th October at the new Applyby Blue Almshouse, where attendees, including Appleby Blue residents helped to prioritise the next steps in housing for older adults in Southwark.

An evaluation from the game and workshop is now underway and with an interim report being prepared for the players over the next month. SCIE will lead a follow-up with players and other key people in January to see what has happened since the Game and any barriers encountered.

The full report will be available in March 2024.