Police officers learn crisis intervention through Virtual Reality - Bucks County Courier Times


SOURCE: THEINTELL.COM
FEB 20, 2022

Police officers throughout the country often rely on quick decisions to handle crisis situations.

One wrong decision in an officer's response can drastically change the outcome. It can be the difference between life and death. But how do officers train for some of the most dangerous calls they may face?

New technology is giving law enforcement in Bucks County another tool to be more prepared for crisis situations, which make up a large percentage of police calls. Virtual reality training helps officers better understand and assess these incidents and their response, officials say.

"This is the closest you can get to real life," said Nicole Wolf, the education and training director for the Lenape Valley Foundation, who recently led a training session at the Bedminster Township Police Department.

The nonprofit recently obtained 15 virtual reality headsets for law enforcement throughout the county to use as part of its Crisis Intervention Team certification training and classes began in November.

The headsets not only put trainees into the perspective of responding officers, the technology also puts them into the shoes of those experiencing a crisis.

"It's just one of another tool to give you another perspective," Bedminster Police Chief Matthew Phelan said.

He tried out the simulation. Phelan said his department had done use-of-force simulations on computers before, but the VR training was the most realistic simulation he had done.

"I think it's a good tool," he said, noting it's not always clear what is going on when officers arrive at the scene of an incident with someone in crisis.

The training helps law enforcement better identify scenarios and come up with solutions that protect both officers and the people the encounter on scene, Phelan

Each headset is loaded with various different scenarios to engage officers. They range from handling someone with autism, PTSD, or schizophrenia, or dealing with a domestic violence call.

In one scenario, officers respond to a store of a report of someone shoplifting. Officers see, from the point of view of the "shoplifter," that someone with autism is "stimming," or repeating certain motions to help them cope with overwhelming situations.

Officers have the option to surround him with their flashing lights on, or they can turn the lights off and let the parents of the man with autism come to comfort him.

Under the first set of options, the man with autism becomes more combative, leading to an officer having to use a Taser device on him.

Under the second set of options, the responding officers de-escalate the situation and calm all those involved.

De-escalation is a topic law enforcement in the country have been examining closely after the police custody death of George Floyd in 2020.

While the Lenape Valley Foundation began looking into the VR training before his death, the training is part of what Bucks County law enforcement is doing to improve their awareness and skills.

Other efforts include hiring mental health co-responders for some Bucks departments, and adopting unified use-of-force guidelines for all police agencies in the county.

In the VR training officers are given choices on how to handle parts of the situation as it unfolds. Once they finish the simulations, they redo them, this time with different choices, just to see how a decision can greatly change the outcome.

One officer taking the training in Bedminster found it useful, noting that he was unaware that flashing lights, which can be a source of overstimulation, would have that type of effect on a person with autism.

“That’s a huge thing for people with autism,” Wolf said.

“You turn off the lights, it changes the whole dynamic of the situation," she added.

Bedminster Officer Trevor Dalton, who completed all the scenarios for his own training, found the simulations particularly beneficial because it put officers on the other side of the crisis.

He said generally officers will be able to tell something is off when they get to a scene, but the training helped them identify what specifically could be triggering or escalating the crisis.

In one of the 12 training scenarios, officers responded to a scene where a man suffering from schizophrenia had a weapon and was threatening to use it. Dalton said officers were able to experience what it could be like for him as the VR technology could make the symptoms of that mental health diagnosis more real for the officers.

“It was very clear immediately he was not in touch with what was going on around him,” Dalton said. The scenarios are updated periodically, officials said.

Wolf said anywhere from 60% to 80% of police service calls require some sort of crisis intervention, ranging from mental health calls and domestic disturbances to burglaries or medical emergencies. The calls, she said, have aspects of wide-ranging emotions, physical conditions and co-occurring disorders.

Officers are very interested to know the experiences of those experiencing these crises and want to better understand their needs, Wolf said. They want to be knowledgeable and responsive when they go to emergency calls to ensure the best outcomes.

Knowing that they are seeing more calls involving mental health situations, officers have been asking for more training so they can hear from their experiences firsthand, according to Wolf. The VR headsets help fill that need and assist officers understand what they can do better in those situations, she said.

The Crisis Intervention Team training is part of a certification officers can earn through the county. The VR training is now required as part of the certification. Officers in the training also do roleplay scenarios to learn how to handle those in crisis situations.

The Regional CIT Collaborative, which consists of programs from Bucks, Philadelphia, Montgomery, Chester and Delaware counties, worked together to get the technology to bring to their respective regions.

At the recent session, Bedminster hosted officers from Dublin, Hilltown, Tinicum and Pennridge Regional. They were encouraged to connect their respective departments with the foundation to have their own time with the headsets.

Pennridge Police Chief Paul Dickinson, who tried the headsets, said he found the training helpful, and that he intended to bring it to his own department. He liked that it let officers be involved without having to fully roleplay scenarios.

He said the headsets were able to quickly put officers into real life situations to train them.

Additional information on CIT training may be found here, https://www.buckscounty.gov/971/CIT-Training.

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