The Ablegamers Foundation

Peer counseling: Ablegamers peer counseling program consists of players with disabilities and occupational professionals who work together to find The best solutions for people with disabilities to enable play. Peer counseling sessions serve as a starting point for granting The hardware, custom controllers, and specialized equipment/technologies that can be prohibitively expensive. The Ablegamers engineering research program compliments The peer counseling program by prototyping and creating new controllers and devices, offering unique and customized solutions for players when barriers to current commercially available products exist.in 2023, peer counseling directly supported 237 individuals with disabilities through one-on-one sessions and provided 3,318 hours of peer counseling support, resulting in reduced barriers to play. Additionally, The program provided individuals with $81,000 in assistive technology and equipment. Within peer counseling, The powered by Ablegamers program added seven (7) additional partner sites providing training and approximately $66,000 in funding/equipment to these hospitals and assistive technology centers. Partner facilities included ability kc, craig hospital, shepherd center, mount sinai hospital, dell children's medical center, boston children's hospital, cincinnati children's hospital medical center, and nationwide children's hospital.

Community and inclusion: The community & inclusion team connects players with disabilities to communities. In 2023, our get together gaming sessions connected over 40 players with disabilities during in-person events either at arcades or gaming conventions. As The community & inclusion team advanced The program, they directly supported over 15 trained medical professionals with information and gaming experiences so that they could energize and excite players about accessible gaming at their local facilities. By working with local communities, The gaming community, and our medical partners, Ablegamers provided unique experiences for camaraderie and lifelong friendships.

User research program & professional development: The user research program works to investigate, document, and share The current options for players in games and document where barriers still exist so that The future of gaming can be one where everyone finds a game that they love. The pillar consists of over 800 players with disabilities who provide a data-driven user approach for gaming studios. In 2023, 29 players with disabilities directly participated in developing video games through The user research program.professional development pillar educates game developers through its accessible player experience class. Through this program, developers learn how to spot accessibility barriers and implement accessible experiences for players with disabilities. In 2023, The program trained 259 game developers to find and solve accessibility barriers in their games. As part of this instruction, $184,000 in training was granted under The organization's developers promoting accessibility & diversity (dpad) initiative.