Royal Children's Hospital

Navigating problems to transform

Engaging minds, 7 minutes at a time. Meet Ed & the Curious Crew

The Challenge

Deepend were tasked with the unique challenge of developing an interactive, educational platform to increase engagement, connection and well-being for children and young people educationally at-risk. Children often feel scared and isolated during their stay in hospital, and can face substantial disruption to their usual schooling program. The Royal Children’s Hospital Education Institute is committed to providing a rich learning experience so that their education continues during their stay. The App was to be a collaborative learning tool that covered a vast range of topics, would appeal to broad age range of children (3-18), and would create greater awareness of the different roles the hospital staff play in the care of children.

The Solution

Gamification

The app contains various types of games with a different level of difficulties suited to a variety of audiences whilst continuing to complement the educational content in the app.

Hand crafted Illustration

Deepend’s design team have created hand drawn illustrations unique to Ed and his Curious Crew characters, as well as the characters’ settings in the app.

Guided by Reggio Emilia approach

Influenced by the Reggio Emilia approach, the structure and content in the app is created to encourage learning discovery and interaction.

Storytelling

Through powerful storytelling, we encourage children to be immersed in the rich content and become an active participant in the app’s functionality, whilst also providing an equally enjoyable experience for the parents, nurses and doctors alike.

The Result

Ed and the Curious Crew at The Royal Children’s Hospital” has been rolled out throughout the Royal Children’s Hospital’s Education Institute, and has been met with great support and praise, from both the Institute and the wider Royal Children’s Hospital. It has so far received an approval rating of almost 100% with plans to be launched nationally. It currently has an average engagement time of over 7 minutes.

Thanks to “Ed and his Curious Crew” education for youths continues during their hospital stay, and children can experience a seamless return to their learning environment. The immersive storytelling with our hand-crafted characters have made the transition from the hospital back to school as easy as possible.