Belgium - Lived experience is not a “nice to have” in prevention work – it is essential when rethinking how we respond…

Belgium - Lived experience is not a “nice to have” in prevention work – it is essential when rethinking how we respond to problematic gaming among young people.​ 🧠 From individual problem to ecosystem This new socio-ecological study shows how frontline practitioners, working directly with youth and families, see gaming problems emerging from intertwined policy, institutional, community, relational, and personal factors rather than from “weak” individuals. Their practice-based insights expose gaps like fragmented policies, unstable funding, unclear referral routes, and hard‑to‑reach families that theory alone often overlooks.​ 🧠 Why experiential expertise matters Because they sit in the middle of this ecosystem, practitioners with lived and practice-based experience can spot where prevention really fails: inaccessible support, missing low‑threshold tools, and parents and young people who only seek help when things are already out of hand. Their stories highlight what works in real life—early parental involvement, meaningful offline connections, and programs that build self‑insight, emotion regulation, and resilience rather than only restricting screen time.​ 🧠 Call to action If we want effective, equitable gaming‑disorder prevention, we must structurally embed experiential experts in research, policy design, and service delivery. That means co‑creating tools with practitioners and families, funding lived‑experience roles, and treating their knowledge as evidence in its own right.