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About Us

How Next Level pressed Start

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When Dr Matt realised that the group of school children he was working with didn’t want to attend the social capacity building program provided by their school, he knew he had to try something new. Rather than trying to teach these children who weren’t engaged, he instead sought to connect with them through their interests and started a collaborative video game club. As more and more children attended, it was abundantly clear that the collaborative and leadership skills the children were using in these video games were much more effectively supporting them than any other program that had been delivered before.

After collecting feedback from these children, Dr Matt wanted to design a program using his research through his role at the University of Melbourne. After discussing this with a colleague, he was introduced to Jess, a qualified speech and language pathologist and neurodiverse researcher. Using her lived experience of neurodiversity and fellow love of gaming, the two worked together to co-develop and refine the program we now know today as Next Level Collaboration.