Orbit

Christian M Jones; Ben Rolfe; Colleen Stieler-Hunt

Orbit is a free to play, online computer game design to protect children from sexual abuse and to help children to disclose abuse. Context: Research estimates that between 7% and 45% of females and 3% and 19% of males are victims of child sexual abuse (CSA). In Australia, 4,000 children each year are confirmed by child protection services as having been sexual abused - that is one child every 2 hours. Furthermore most cases of child sexual abuse are never reported. The most vulnerable age for sexual abuse is between 7 and 13 years, and 84% of sexually abused children are victimised before age 12. Stranger danger strategies don't work when the perpetrator is known to the child (30% of sexual abuse is by family members, 55% friends or family friends and 15% strangers). The Criminology Research Council suggests the economic cost > $180,000 for each child that is abused. The Australian Bureau of Criminal Intelligence conservatively estimates 40,000 Australian children are sexually abused each year. That's $7.2 billion AUD worth of damage. Concern about the magnitude of child abuse in Australia lead the Prime Minister to announce a national inquiry (Australian Government, 2012). This concern highlighted the need for a child protection initiative that supports both professional training for those responsible for children and prevention programs for children themselves. Objectives: Orbit helps children develop knowledge and practical skills to protect themselves from sexual abuse and to disclose abuse. Evaluations have shown that Orbit helps children: • develop an age appropriate understanding of sexual abuse, • recognise that sexual abuse is illegal, and not their fault, • understand that if they are being sexually abused, they need to tell all of the adults in their support network. Orbit is different than other programs and looks more deeply at the barriers to telling including overcoming the influence of the abuser(s) and their power, and fears about what will happen if they tell. Orbits also enables children to learn in a safe environment that most perpetrators of sexual abuse are close family. Evidence of impact: Orbit's success is 1) a reduction in instances of CSA and 2) an increase in the number of substantiated disclosures. Orbit is now the key resource in the Australian Child Protection Curriculum. To date Orbit has been included in the software installer for all computers in all Education Queensland schools and will be rolled out across other States and Territories in 2014. Real world play: Orbit is set on a spaceship and crew are aliens to remove any possibility that children may associate abusers with human attributes, such as facial hair. The game mechanics are designed to cover all of key CSA protection principles whilst the storyline shows that perpetrators use tactics such as being nice to create barriers to telling. Whilst playing Orbit, the child creates their own 'real-life' trusted adult network and what they 'need to tell' them. The games are designed to allow children and their trusted adults to play side by side, to solve problems together and improve their communication and trust ahead of any potential disclosure. For full list of credits, see http://orbit.org.au/bts/credits/; Project partners: University of the Sunshine Coast; Telstra Foundation; Daniel Morcombe Foundation; Queensland Police Service; Curious Bear; Sunshine Cooloola Services Against Sexual Violence Inc., Department of Education, Training and Employment, Queensland; Child Safety Services, Queensland Government; Family Planning Queensland; Queensland University of Technology; Griffith University; Cereproc text to speech.

Orbit

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