Steve Watts is the founder of independent gambling charity GamFam and an experienced senior education professional. Through GamFam, Steve delivers tailored programmes in schools to educate the whole school community on the dangers of online gaming and online gambling.
His knowledge and passion for supporting and educating local communities led Carolyn Harris MP, the Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for Gambling Related Harm, to become a trustee of the charity, despite GamFam’s relative youth.
Steve has worked in education for over 15 years across a number of senior leadership roles and over the course of the last 7 years, has been a Deputy Headteacher at a secondary school in Essex.
Through his own lived experience of dealing with a son who developed a gaming addiction which escalated into a gambling disorder, GamFam now helps families recognise the early warning signs associated with an online gaming addiction and how this could possibly lead to a child developing a compulsive gambling disorder.
From Online Gaming to Online Gambling: The Signs and Preventing Addiction
This webinar provides schools with the knowledge and understanding they need to put in place supportive and preventative strategies for children, before the lure of gambling sets in.
This webinar will help school staff and parents and carers to recognise the early warning signs associated with an online gaming addiction and how this could potentially lead to a child developing a compulsive gambling disorder.
In May 2019, the World Health Organisation (WHO) officially recognised gaming addiction as a type of mental health disorder, defining it as:
- "a pattern of gaming behaviour characterized by impaired control over gaming, increasing priority given to gaming over other activities to the extent that gaming takes precedence over other interests and daily activities, and continuation or escalation of gaming despite the occurrence of negative consequences.”
In this webinar, Steve Watts, founder of the GamFam charity and experienced education professional, provides schools with the knowledge and understanding they need to put in place supportive and preventative strategies for children, before the lure of gambling sets in.
