Box of Belonging: the Neuroinclusion Card Game

Created by Michel Le Roux, Rachel Woodroof & Nathalie MacCarthy

A shared language for neuroinclusion

Box of Belonging is a collaborative educational initiative exploring how different people experience the world, what helps them contribute and what can get in their way.

At its centre is the Neuroinclusion Card Game: a facilitated experience in which participants explore realistic situations, make decisions together and discover how different conditions can affect people’s ability to participate.

The initiative is being developed by Bipolar Belong, Greenhouse Consulting and Synarchy, combining lived experience, emotional understanding and practical learning.

Meet different characters. Face real-life challenges. Discover what can change.

What happens when people with different strengths, needs and ways of working come together on a project? Players meet characters with distinct strengths and friction points. They work through a shared project while Challenge Cards introduce situations that may block someone’s strengths or make collaboration more difficult.

The group then explores possible Work Design responses: practical changes to expectations, communication, time, space or the way an activity is organised.

The game brings together four elements:

Character Cards introduce different people, their strengths and friction points.

Project Cards set a shared task with several phases.

Challenge Cards introduce situations that may create barriers.

Work Design Cards suggest ways to change the conditions and support participation.

Information is revealed progressively, giving participants space to notice assumptions, reconsider first impressions and explore what changes when more becomes known.

There are no winners and no scores. The value lies in the conversation and what the group discovers together.

Changing conditions, not fixing people

The facilitator guides the experience and a structured debrief follows the game. Participants reflect on moments that stood out, recurring frictions, assumptions about the characters and what happened when conditions changed. Personal sharing is always optional. Nobody is required to disclose a diagnosis or personal experience.

The experience is not a diagnostic exercise and does not attempt to simulate what it feels like to live with a particular condition. It is designed to help people examine assumptions, recognise barriers and consider how environments can enable or restrict participation.

The central question is simple:

Are we changing the conditions, or asking someone to cope with them?

Learning, evaluation and shared resources

Box of Belonging is being tested and refined through practical use. Participant feedback, observations and facilitator reflections help the partners understand how people experience the game and how its educational approach can improve. The wider ambition is for learning to travel beyond a single session. Synarchy is helping develop the initiative, coordinate collaboration, evaluate learning and explore ways for educational resources to be shared more widely with organisations working towards inclusion.

Three complementary perspectives

Bipolar Belong contributes lived experience and community insight, helping keep the approach connected to real experiences of difference, disclosure, misunderstanding and participation.

Greenhouse Consulting contributes expertise in emotional intelligence, listening, communication and psychological safety.

Synarchy supports development, coordination, evaluation and the wider public-benefit purpose of the initiative.

Together, the partners are developing a practical educational approach to help people question assumptions, understand difference and create more room for participation.

Different minds. Shared understanding. More room to belong.