We have more than once written that VR can provide endless opportunities for learning in a wide variety of industries. It’s not just about school or entertainment teaching content. Virtual reality has already proven itself as an effective tool for thorough training of medical, food, service and industrial workers, as well as military and police training.
Now the Australian company House with No Steps has created a prototype of a training VR program to help with the training of employees working with people with disabilities. This will prepare them for responding to potentially dangerous situations.
“Virtual reality is a powerful tool,” says Andrew Richardson, CEO of House with No Steps Group. “We want to use it to help our support staff learn how to safely deal with risky situations in the workplace.”
The development of the project was made possible by the Immersive Tech Hackathon 2017 hackathon, where he received a grant of $ 200,000 from the Australian National Disability Service’s Innovative Human Resources Fund.
House with No Steps provides various services, such as entertainment and employment for people with disabilities. The company found that in the work of social workers, risks are divided into four key categories: environmental, medical, behavioral and emotional.
Currently, there is no effective training protocol covering all four categories, and employees have to learn from their own experience and learn the nuances of each client’s personality. Virtual reality will also allow employees to practice their reactions to a variety of situations without compromising the client or themselves.
For example, in the prototype, there is a scenario where different clients react differently to the same irritant – the TV: one has a post-traumatic reaction, the other has aggression, and the third has a panic attack. In this case, a support worker must go into the room with virtual patients and react adequately to the situation.
“People are changing the working environment when they come to our sector,” said the participant who tested the prototype. “Thus, this experience can help new employees prepare for future work in a safe environment. The advantage for clients is that they are not at risk when faced with an unprepared worker. “