The Fun Foundry's mission is to help City of Moreton Bay teens and tweens forge their social skills and make stronger social connections with like-minded young people. Katie created Fun Foundry to help parents grow their children's social and emotional confidence after seeing a great need for such programs in our local community over eleven years as a registered homeschool parent.

Thankfully, Social Play Academy created a program that matched Katie’s inclusive approach to supporting neurodivergent young people. Social Play Academy’s DOTS & DOTS+ programs are experience-first focused: where social learning happens within the game through laughter, collaboration, and safe risk-taking. There is no aim to “fix” social behaviour. Instead, it is an approach that offers young people the tools, space and support to learn, connect in their own way, and engage with confidence and creativity.

The Dragons of the Spectrum (DOTS) is a fun, story-based social learning program designed for children aged 10+. Built around a simplified tabletop role-playing game, DOTS helps children build social confidence, emotional awareness, and peer connection in a safe, neuro-affirming environment. Each session features targeted social-emotional learning followed by a collaborative fantasy adventure. Participants create their own characters and work together to solve challenges, explore new environments, defeat enemies, and engage with playful but meaningful social tasks—using the skills they’ve just learned.

DOTS and DOTS+ are social play programs developed by Social Play Academy and delivered at Fun Foundry by a certified facilitator.

Fun Foundry Director and Program Facilitator Katie is a certified DOTS Facilitator.

Click here for Social Play Academy's

Dragons of the Spectrum website.

View Social Play Academy's DOTS Presentation for Parents video.

Show your kids the trailer for Dragons of the Spectrum!

• Structured and manualised learning program
• Combines evidence-informed social learning with fantasy role-play
• Designed for neurodivergent children, especially those with Autism, ADHD, and PDA
• Celebrates individual strengths, diverse communication styles, and creativity
• Offers structured skill development through cooperative storytelling
• Promotes real-world generalisation through weekly take-home missions

What Skills Does DOTS Promote?

• Duration: 10 weekly sessions (120 minutes each)
• Group Size: 3-4 participants per group
• Format: Typically facilitated during school terms
• Eligibility: Ideal for children aged 10+ with social communication needs. Suitable for children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (Level 1-2), ADHD, or related profiles.
• Program Pack: Participation in DOTS requires a ‘Program Pack’ (includes all the necessary resources to participate in the program: dice, tokens, skill cards, Adventurer’s Guide activity book.

What Skills Does DOTS Promote?

DOTS Programs run for ten weeks with a single two-hour session per week.

Spaces are limited.

Dragons of the Spectrum Plus (DOTS+) is for young people who have already completed Dragons of the Spectrum (DOTS). They can continue the fun and build on the social skills practiced in DOTS by learning to become a game master, not just a game adventurer.

Katie will initially guide the budding game masters on how to plan and create a great adventure of their own, as well as working on more advanced social skills (such as theory of mind and flexibility when working with others). Then in later weeks Katie will support each new game master to fully run their created adventure with their fellow group members.

Similar to DOTS, DOTS+ involves two hour weekly sessions running for ten weeks.

During School Holidays the Fun Foundry runs supervised gaming sessions, including Role Playing Table Top Games, Wingspan, Wyrmspan, Isle of Cats, and many more. Other fantasy themed and imagination-based activites such as art and craft sessions will also be included.

Multiple daily two hour sessions are available. Tweens and Teens can attend one, two, three or all four.

Click here for the enquiries form to express interest in a school holiday session.

The structured homework activities contained in DOTS and DOTS+ provide ample opportunities for homeschooling parents to assist their child outside of sessions, and to be an active part of their child’s social skill learning success. Social skills development can be incorporated into learning plans for the purposes of Queensland Home Education (QHE) registration. This means that content produced by your child as they complete DOTS or DOTS+ could be used as written samples for the purposes of annual reporting to QHE.

Katie is very experienced and willing to assist any registered homeschooling family on an individual-needs basis by providing further information on how DOTS and DOTS+ can be incorporated into any tween/teens’ annual education plan and annual report requirements.

Katie can also provide reports on attendance and participation for those homeschooling families using DOTS and/or DOTS+ as part of their child’s distance education school program (on top of the certificate all participants receive upon completion of DOTS/DOTS+).

Katie has sometimes found that school education programs and individual therapy sessions aren’t quite enough to fully support young people to learn how to make strong social connections, which are such an important part of well-being. Many neurodivergent young people find traditional models of social learning unmotivating, or even inaccessible, as they often heavily rely on token rewards or compliance-based strategies. These sometimes don’t translate into real-world confidence or connection when a young person is facing additional challenges with Autism, ADHD, PDA, Dyslexia, Dysgraphia, Dyscalculia or any other developmental and/or physical and mental health conditions.

DOTS & DOTS+ provide another opportunity for local teens and tweens to meet in a non-digital supportive space and learn a fun, creative game while also gaining social skills together. These social skills can transfer to their other group situations (such as school, sport, music, community group volunteering or even work situations for the older teens).

Afterschool sessions are timed so those local tweens and teens that catch buses to schools further afield can participate as well.

At Fun Foundry, we are committed to keeping fun safe, supportive, respectful and healthy for all children and young people, regardless of their cultural background or any disabilities. We recognise and support First Nations children, children from cultural and linguistically diverse backgrounds, gender diverse children, and children that are neurodivergent.

Click here to view our comprehensive policies and procedures document.

We are fully insured and use only accessible facilities. Katie, our Director and Program Facilitator holds a Blue Card, current First Aid Certification (including additional asthma and anaphylaxis units), and is a Certified Facilitator of the Dragons of the Spectrum programs.

Fun Foundry holds its Dayboro sessions at the Dayboro Meeting Hub. This is a Moreton Bay City Council facility with disability access, disability bathrooms, and a defibrilator.

Fun Foundry is not currently NDIS (National Disability Insurance Scheme) registered, although our social skill groups may be covered under an NDIS participant's plan, if the participant’s goals align with that of the group. Coverage depends on individual plans, therefore we recommend checking with your support coordinator, local area coordinator and/or plan manager before registering with Fun Foundry.