ExperienceCraft is a Minecraft server that is not that different from other multiplayer Minecraft servers.
Kids who join the server can build, chat, play, and share with each other in a wide variety of in-game activities. But everyone who participates in this server has had an unfortunate experience that unites them.
“All the children there have lost someone important to them in their lives,” says Katie Salen, who is one of the promoters of the program.
He server (opens in a new tab)launched in the summer of 2022 in partnership between two non-profit organizations experience camps (opens in a new tab) Y connected camps (opens in a new tab)and the University of California Irvine. The goal is to provide a safe, moderated, grief-aware online community that encourages connection year-round in a digital space. There is also a significant research component to the project to help better understand how to develop safe, equitable, and youth-focused experiences online, says Salen, who is co-founder and lead designer of Connected Camps and also a professor in the Department of Computer Science. at the University of California at Irvine.
How ExperienceCraft started
Experience Camps is a non-profit organization that hosts an annual week-long overnight camp for grieving children. The organization recently began efforts to extend its support “beyond the bunk.” They partnered with Connected Camps, which specializes in creating kid-safe online communities, to create a Minecraft server that could take advantage of in-person camp programming. “The challenge with summer camp is that it’s restricted to kids who can physically get there,” says Salen. She adds that even for those who can attend, it’s a short amount of time. “They make friends, they develop really strong mentoring relationships with counselors, and then it just goes away. So the idea was, could there be a kind of digital bridge that would basically extend that experience throughout the year?
The online experience would also provide access for those unable to attend in person via the Minecraft server and linked Discord server. “If they can’t go to fitness camp, they could be involved in this community and not get all the benefits, but get some of the benefits of being in communication, partnering, and collaborating with other kids who are probably going through something that’s pretty similar to something what they are also going through,” says Salen.
How is the experience?
The gathering point of the community is the passion for the Minecraft game, just like on other Minecraft servers. “The idea is that we meet the kids where they are: here’s a game they love to play,” says Salen. “So let’s surround the game they love to play with the support guys that will help them build a community that will help them on their grief journey.”
To help with these goals, there are items backed by research on the server that support their users. “There are parts of the world that have been positively designed for grief,” says Salen. “There is a Memorial Garden where children are encouraged to build [memorials] around the person who has died and different activities that are based on the work that Experience Camp has done with grieving children, simply giving them a space to express what they feel”.
The server moderators are college students. They are trained to support children who are grieving and provide close peer mentoring (opens in a new tab). “If you can connect with someone a little older than you who shares an interest, it can be really transformative for a young person,” says Salen.
What is being studied and how your students can participate
Part of the goal of this server will be to study how to foster better connections among bereaved youth in an online environment. “One of the things we hope is that they have a sense of ownership,” says Salen. “It’s really important for grieving children to feel like they’re part of a welcoming community. This is mostly true for all children.”
Salen and his colleagues are also seeking to better understand what online grief supports in this kind of space work, and why. “So what does a memorial garden setting really offer to young people?” she says. “Part of it is that it gives them a chance to express something. We know from the literature that this is important.”
Additionally, conversations with peers and facilitators could help them develop a larger vocabulary for expressing their grief. “We know that many people, even adults, have a hard time talking about how they feel,” says Salen. “So we’ve been looking at mechanisms to really deepen children’s vocabulary about how they feel, how to talk about their pain.”
Educators who have grieving students who might be interested in joining the server can direct them to your site (opens in a new tab). The server is on the safe list, so all participants in the server are known and examined.
“There’s a process for signing up where we make sure the young person is who they say they are,” she says. “But he is meant to serve any grieving child.”
