Rachel Conlisk is an innovative entertainment and inclusive play specialist. She is a Founder and Director of Creative Active Lives CIC, Spinsonic Arts, MineMania Minecraft Server for children who have special educational needs and disabilities. Rachel is also an SSE Fellow, Unltd Award Winner, Small Biz Top 100, f:Entrepreneur #ialso100 Top 100 Female Entrepreneurs, and a finalist in the Great British Entrepreneur Awards 2024 in the Innovation Category.
The Power Of Play
О: Your project is unique. I was amazed with the fact that you help kids making the way from Minecraft to real world communication and meeting. Of course, that is especially important to work with children who have special educational needs and disabilities. You also do hula hooping! Could you tell us about yourself and all of these amazing, beautiful things you combine?
R: I started as a professional hula hooper in 2013 after a career as a data analyst for many years. When I discovered the joy of hula hooping and the power of play, that permission to release your inner child. I found that just having that opportunity to play, that release, transformed my own mental health, self-confidence, self-esteem, and gave me the confidence to form great friendship networks.
And it transformed my life completely. That kick-started the work that I do, harnessing the power of play to change lives and to provide a space for people to access that power if they wanted to, on their own terms with the activities that they find particularly calls to them.
I set up Spinsonic Arts, a company that delivered circus skills workshops. I soon found that I enjoyed working with children and adults that have physical or learning disabilities or autism, and later working with older people who have dementia, and people who have struggles with mental health and experienced social isolation.
The company grew quickly due to the level of need in the community, and my services were unique at that time. To keep up with demand I worked with other professionals who also provided different types of wellbeing activities that had the same transformative impact on people of all ages with all different needs.
This work developed into my forming a Community Interest Company (CIC) in 2019 – a registered nonprofit organisation Creative Active Lives CIC, where we worked as a collective, providing many different physical and creative activities in our community.
We welcome everyone, and although we find naturally we do have a lot of people who might have different needs, we’re open to everyone. For me, that’s what inclusive means. Individuals being able to ‘come as you are’ without feeling judged or different or othered.
As I have a teenager who’s on the pathway for a diagnosis of autism, that led me into working in the digital space where her ‘special interests’ lay. And in particular, Minecraft, which Sam loved, but due to her age and other social and other factors wasn’t able to play online with other children.
So I set up Minecraft Club Socials, on a server hosted by a session leader who set up a private world for us. I hoped the socials would be useful to other families and children who might experience the same challenges as Sam and I. I found out there were a lot of families with the same challenges and these sessions started to grow.
When our session leader closed his server last year, we created our own server with Sam being the driving force behind it and me leading our Zoom socials. Having our own server allowed me to offer our sessions free of charge, increase the number of social sessions and take on more members. It was also a huge learning curve for both of us!
To support the development and costs of setting up and maintaining the server and safeguarding I looked for funding to support what we were trying to do as it was expensive and a lot of work for just me and Sam. Funding is competitive and hard to get, but I was fortunate to get funding for a year of server cloud hosting and to buy laptops to offer in person sessions. A later funding application was successful to develop a more accessible stand alone server to increase accessibility, improve safeguards, and reduce monthly costs of hosting. But the day to day running of the server, and social sessions are run on a voluntary basis by Sam and I after work and school. We have just had two more volunteers join us which is fantastic and will help take some of the pressure off.
Thanks to a partnership with my local council Go Play team we created a space for children and families to come together to play, with lots of arts, crafts, circus, Lego, games and other activities — but always with a 12-person Minecraft LAN gaming setup.
The children who come to us to play online are often very isolated, some aren’t in school due to autistic burnout, Emotionally Based School Avoidance EBSA), or other reasons for not being in school. To have this digital space where they could meet other children, build their self-confidence and a supportive peer network meant over time, they actually wanted to meet us and their friends in our IRL play spaces — gaming fun days, holiday camps and family fun clubs — without it being a demand put on them. Instead it was a desire of their own.
They knew that they had a group of friends that they could come and meet in person. And it’s been absolutely magical to see the children actually come together and meet in real life. And those online friendships becoming IRL friendships.
They knew that they had a group of friends that they could come and meet in person. And it’s been absolutely magical to see the children actually come together and meet in real life. And those online friendships becoming IRL friendships.
We’ve had a lot of parents who’ve talked to me at my in-person sessions: “I’m not sure of screen time, we want to limit their screen time, we don’t want them online gaming”. But by demonstrating the power of using that digital space where children feel safe and comfortable and self-confident will allow them to transition to in-person when they’re ready.
It just shows that the digital space can be good. Gaming for good. It doesn’t always have negative effects on children.
You know, it’s so impressive and empowering. That’s great what you do.
It all happened quite by accident. Or I should say it’s all happened very organically. I didn’t ever have a plan. It has always been about responding to the needs of our community and of individual children and families. And the work we are doing has snowballed and grown more than I was expecting!
Safety and Awareness
On one hand, Ukrainian parents are also concerned about screen time, and “kids gaming a lot”. But on the other hand, Ukrainian parents especially want to protect their children because of the Russian war against us. So, for example, parents may say to kids: “Stay in touch, always!”. And that means: “Always keep your smartphone with you”. And there is some paradox…. Because then we have this conversation about screen time. Honestly, parents want their child to do what they want, and also to have divine self-management skills (I realise it as a father). But that’s impossible. And of course you know that there are threats online, including in online games. And some parents may overestimate or underestimate them…
The safeguarding element is one of the most important things that we do. That’s probably my biggest role in making it all happen.
As I said, I’m not the greatest Minecraft player. The kids run rings around me. But the main thing that I do is ensure that everyone’s safe. So when we set up the in-person LAN gaming sessions, they are always in a secure local environment with a laptop server, so it’s not connected to online. The online server is whitelisted and we have a process for whitelisting new members.
Parents know that nobody can join unless I personally verify them via Zoom and can see them join as the child and then add them to the white list. And then I can greet them and show them around.
We have plugins for chat logging and monitoring, and a discord bot so admins and parents can see live chat in real time for their peace of mind. We have a range of other security plugins to ensure a safe environment to play in, to reduce griefing and to enable any damage or issues to be identified and rolled back.
We aim to create a nurturing and supported environment and we have regular contact with parents to ensure children’s wellbeing.
That’s really important for parents and children. And I think the next important thing is awareness. My son likes Minecraft so much, and other games too. So for me, being aware of video games is also about understanding him better, being closer. And when I see him play something like “Portal 2” (a really great thing for our neurons), I am happy, because I know: “the game is good, he’s safe”. And I try to help Ukrainian parents become more aware of video games.
That’s right. I found doing the in person sessions where parents can get together and meet each other in real life really helpful both as server admin and as a parent myself. We share similar situations and worries and it’s always good to talk.
I found a lot of parents’ worries about online gaming is because they don’t know about how online gaming works, and they don’t always know how to keep their children safe because it can be really complicated to even download and install a game let alone set up parental controls.
But when we’ve been able to show parents how to set up games and parental controls, they feel more confident and empowered to allow their children to play in safe environments.
Video Games: Come As You Are
What do you think is the main power of video games?
Oh that’s a really good question. It’s really hard to say.I grew up playing on my Spectrum 128K and I’ve always gamed from the 1980s onwards!
A lot of children might not necessarily enjoy team games and sports games and a lot of the children that I know and work with have often had some trauma from forced participation, and bullying that ensued.
But in the video game world it’s often about your reaction time and speed, and you can practise things. If it gets overwhelming you can step away for a breather and come back. It gives children the time and the confidence and the empowerment to be themselves online. You all start from the same place and you practise, practice from the comfort of your own home. You haven’t got to deal with the added barriers of going to a strange building, navigating perhaps public transport, dealing with the sensory issues of sounds, lights, smells, uniform, people.
You can come as you are to video games so you can be in a place where you do feel comfortable and confident. You haven’t got any additional barriers to accessing that involve leaving the house. You can just be.
You can play in a manner of your choosing. You don’t have to follow the rules of a team game. You can, especially in Minecraft being a sandbox game, you can play in the way that you enjoy, whether it’s killing each other or creating a farm or building a house.
You can be yourself on your own terms within a video game. And I found, again, with what we do, it’s a very accepting environment. So you don’t have to join in with the battle. You can just be alongside everyone else, building your farm, but chatting in the zoo. It’s a place where you really can come as you are.
Sometimes people say: “oh, kids wasting so much time in games”, but I think they just don’t understand what kids are doing there. It’s nothing like the video games of my childhood. When my son was 11-12 years old, he and his friends were building countries in Minecraft. They would make laws, write a constitution, then make some wars and revolutions, and make videos about it for YouTube (of course). That’s why my son kept asking me: “How to make a video?”, “How to write a script?”, “How to make a JSON archive?”, “How do I write a constitution for the country?” (the last one was a bit difficult for me).
Gaming is a springboard to so many other subjects and topics! The conversations we have in our Minecraft socials can encompass, for example — when we had elections for the mayor of the village, they encompassed all the different types of political systems, electoral systems. We talked about politics and history. Sam, my own daughter, started with playing Minecraft, but Minecraft springboarded her into learning about coding, writing plugins, security, networking, creating LAN gaming setups.
Recently she’s been leading sessions, which has taught her about leadership roles and different communication skills. We are also teaching coding skills, pixel art, game design. You can use gaming as a hook to lead to other interests and expand horizons and raise aspirations in so many different topics and subjects.
Maybe you have a story about your work, or clients that especially touches you? And maybe you share it a little bit (with all of the confidentiality, of course)?
Yeah, of course!
There’s a child who joins our sessions online and who was born with spina bifida and corpus callosum agenesis and also having a diagnosis of autism and as cognitive and learning difficulties. There’s also pathological demand avoidance traits.
He has so many frequent hospital appointments, scams, tests, surgeries and has endured beyond what any child could be expected to go through. And that’s caused or contributed to a generalised anxiety disorder.
He may also have cerebral palsy, according to his neurosurgeon, with a very high muscle tone. Because of all of that, this child was home educated to make sure that his needs would be met and he’d be able to receive an education tailored for him.
Literary literacy has been a real struggle and teaching him to read and write in a traditional way has been impossible. Between the learning difficulties and pathological demand avoidance, then the parents needed an alternative way of developing literacy.
And mom told me that this is where my MineMania, my server and our groups have become a major educational tool. And this was an unexpected benefit of my Minecraft groups that it just brought me so much joy and I never expected.
And mom’s told me that they’ve noticed a fantastic improvement in his letter recognition. And lately, too, with sight words, he started understanding chat content in the chat window of Minecraft by recognizing words and inferring the content.
He’s been replying back by sounding out and attempting words by actually writing. Meeting himself, which is an incredibly positive impact, because it’s not perceived as a demand. So he’s happy to engage in teaching himself, almost reading and writing.
Due to his anxiety and sensory avoidance and other issues, he struggled with meeting people and forming and maintaining friendships and relationships. So he found our twice-weekly online MindMania sessions absolutely fantastic to be able to make friends in a non-judgmental and supportive environment, where he feels accepted, and just like everyone else.
He often says things like, “I love my friends”, or “I’m so excited to see my friends”, and to hear that honestly brought tears to my eyes.
He often says things like, “I love my friends”, or “I’m so excited to see my friends”, and to hear that honestly brought tears to my eyes. He has even started joining our fortnightly in-person Saturday sessions, which is just amazing. It’s a one and a half hour drive each way, which in the UK, that’s a long drive for us. Mom said that without doubt that the Minecraft sessions are a highlight of the week and they’re so grateful as well to have it for him.
It’s been transformative in his life. And to hear that from my parents, it just made my whole year. It really did. It’s hard sometimes doing the sessions. But when you hear that it really has an impact, then everything is worthwhile.
Thank you for sharing! And this once again shows what games are capable of (in the hands of loving, attentive and creative people).
But video games are often stigmatised. Misunderstanded. Not only for parents, but also for mental health professionals. And this is probably not just about video games, but about everything new in general. I read a great book by Jessica Stone, “Digital Play Therapy: A Clinician’s Guide to Comfort and Competence”. And there she writes about Pokémon cards. When these cards became popular with children, many play therapists simply did not understand it (maybe because it’s something weird and Japanese). But Jessica Stone saw these cards as a huge source of information about the client. And I would like to tell more about the superpowers of video games to mental health professionals. What do you think?
I’m not a mental health professional, all I can speak about is my own experience as a parent and leading these sessions. But I think mental health professionals really do need to buy into this power of gaming, as the children who might be at risk of falling through the cracks can often be engaged through the gaming world.
They may not be comfortable talking in person and they may not have anyone to talk to. They may not feel confident talking or confident leaving the house. However, being able to engage these children where they already feel safe, is a really powerful tool to reach these children who are often the hardest to reach.
I believe we have to advocate for the children who need gaming for their wellbeing and mental health, because they often can’t advocate for themselves — they’re often not listened to. So by amplifying their voices and providing space for them to be heard and saying why it is so important to them, why it’s their safe space — is a good starting point to help show mental health professionals the important of gaming on children’s wellbeing.
“Real” and “Virtual”: Can We Combine It For Children’s Good?
Could I ask your opinion about my idea of combining gaming and real life? I want to create a support group in Minecraft education for Ukrainian refugee kids in Germany, аnd the goal is to develop friendly relationships and uplift them with some quests.
And I’m thinking what if….
…What if these kids receive the coordinates of their spawn in Minecraft in physical envelopes?
…What if they can solve some quests in the physical world between sessions (with paper and pencil), what will lead them to new places in Minecraft? I mean add these physical elements.
For what?
I want to show kids: “what you do in the digital world impacts the physical world… and vice versa! If young people could see gaming not only as a place to escape, but they can change the real world with it.
What do you think?!
That sounds awesome. It sounds like a real-life treasure hunt but linked to the Minecraft world. Really engaging, really creative and also they would have that special feeling of getting something physical in the mail to hold and to look at and investigate. I think that would be really powerful, a fantastic idea.
Thank you. You know, I did it, but not in Minecraft. I worked with events in Kyiv, in 2019. Guys I worked with had a big two-story building with a bunch of fulldome cinema, VR, exhibitions, board games, stages… But we had to combine it somehow! To make it interesting for kids to come there at any time. So we decided to create a quest throughout this building! With paper maps, mysteries… You solved a mystery, and then you could play VR and then you have a new challenge…. And there was a single storyline, like the Hero’s Journey. Some had their doubts: “Well, modern children and paper quests…” But the children were delighted!
Oh, I love that. You’re giving me ideas now of things I want to do.
That’s cool!
A sedentary lifestyle is something that really worries me when it comes to threats related to video games. Do you remember the hype about Pokemon Go like “A video game that brings gamers outdoors”? I just want to say: we don’t need to wait for another Pokemon Go, we can do something with things we got if we want to combine digital and physical worlds.
Yeah, it sounds really exciting, a treasure hunt and gaming. So do you know about Geocaching?
Yes, I like this idea so much. But I think kids in Ukraine don’t know about it. The Covid-19 pandemic has damaged such games a lot.
Elements of geocaching and clues and treasure hunts and gaming all work so well together that digital in person and then online. That would be fantastic. I’m really, I’m really excited to see what you do and how it all works. And I will be stalking you for updates. You do realise that don’t you?
Of course! I’ll be glad to share it with you and I want to realise it this year.
I just want to, you know, bring some fun to this kid’s life.
I think you are definitely going to do that. If ever in the future, when we’ve got time and we know what we’re doing, it would be really interesting. Maybe we could have like a virtual meetup, maybe your Minecraft people and my Minecraft people, maybe we could have like a mini games meetup or something.
Yeah, that’s great! You know, especially for Ukrainian kids who want to learn English.
It would be really interesting for groups across the world to be able to meet up with other youth groups and just have little, maybe a mini games, a Bedwars session or a building session together and bridge the cultural divide and get to broaden their horizons a bit and meet other children.
Yeah! Ukrainian, British, Polish, and German kids… Different kids! In general, they play Minecraft together anyway, but we can help establish connections for children who need such help perhaps. And every child can bring something special for them, for their culture… And they can express it with Minecraft blocks and constructions. With artefacts of different nations. It can be anything. But it’s about being united.
That would be amazing. It may be very powerful and I think so. We could do that. We could make that happen. That would be lovely. A meeting of cultures through Minecraft. That would be fabulous.
I think that’s real. I would love to do that. Let’s think about it!
For me, it is also about the values that are very important in the world today. I think we need that and let children have that power of play together.
Yes, that’s a great idea! Thank you very much for the inspiration, thank you for inviting me to talk with you. I’ve really enjoyed it and it’s been so lovely to meet you in person.
Yeah, me too! Once again, I want to express my delight in your work, and thank you for the conversation!
