CREATED WITH THE MIDDLEBURY INSTITUTE CENTER ON TERRORISM, EXTREMISM, AND COUNTERTERRORISM
SERVICES: GAME DESIGN, UX RESEARCH
COLLABORATORS: AFFORDANCE STUDIO, TOIYA FINLEY (SCHNOODLE MEDIA, LLC), THE URBAN ASSEMBLY
FUNDERS:Â DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY (DHS)
This project is partially funded by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Center for Prevention Programs and Partnerships, opportunity number DHS-22-TTP-132-00-01.
Extremist and terrorist actors increasingly target adolescent communities for recruitment. Still, Prevention and Countering Violent Extremism (P/CVE) programs fall short of accurately addressing the needs of this audience, and high schools across the United States are unequipped to contend with the escalating challenge.
With funding provided through the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) FY21 Targeted Violence and Terrorism Prevention (TVTP) Grant program, iThrive Games and the Center on Terrorism, Extremism, and Counterterrorism (CTEC) at the Middlebury Institute for International Studies are designing and developing a new game-based curriculum that will educate and empower adolescents to become more aware and resistant to radicalization, build their resilience within their local networks, and build capacity at the high school and district level for P/CVE program administration.
Through iThrive Games' co-design approach which empowers teens as subject matter experts and supports their voice, design thinking, and agency, this P/CVE program will be produced with its target audience, adolescents in high schools, and end with a role-playing simulation game hosted on the iThrive Sim platform and an accompanying curricular experience. The game-based experience is slated to launch in late 2023 and will help adolescents:
- Recognize the signs of potential grooming and exploitation by extremist actors;
- Understand the harms to civil society by extremist and terrorist radicalization;
- Comprehend the impact of offensive, racially charged, violent, and hateful comedy and satire;
- Build awareness of the indicators of extremist recruitment in communities; and
- Resist extremist influence in online and physical communities
This project will work closely with educators and students from five pilot high schools located in different regions and settings (rural, urban, suburban) to design and test the proposed Prevention and Countering Violent Extremism (P/CVE) program.
With Teens: Intended to support teen resilience directly, development began with a hands-on design session with high school students in a media studies program, which shaped our initial prototype. Several one-on-one interviews and playtesting sessions were held with teens, ages 14-19, who informed and refined the language, examples, visual style, and strategies featured in the game to ensure maximum relatability and efficacy. Playtesters and co-designers have been enthusiastic about the realistic feel of the conversations between characters and the chance to practice interacting with a "friend" who is being radicalized. Teens' perspectives on the best ways to cope with the big emotions and experiences that can make someone more vulnerable to radicalization continue to enrich this game as it undergoes iteration ahead of launch.
With Subject Matter Experts: Game development is informed by the incredible minds at Middlebury Institute of International Studies Center on Terrorism, Extremism, and Counterterrorism (CTEC) as well as consultants John Horgan, PhD, of Georgia State University, a leading expert in the psychology of terrorism and radicalization; and Christian Picciolini, a former member of an extremist group whose life's work is now dedicated to prevention, de-radicalization, and activism.
