Virtual Reality MHCR Training

The Mental Health Crisis Response (MHCR) training offered by Laurier's Centre for Public Safety and Well-Being can be implemented using live-action or virtual reality (VR) scenarios. VR-MHCR leverages a virtual reality format to enhance the portability, scalability, and consistency of the scenario-based curriculum across Ontario at significant cost-savings relative to live-action scenario training.

Officer learners use VR headsets to enter a fully immersive VR environment that replicates the settings and characters from the original MHCR scenarios, offering life-like situations and interactive environments that are scaled 1:1 from a first-person perspective.

While many VR-training programs reduce crisis encounters to a series of multiple-choice options, the VR-MHCR’s 360-degree "open world" construction captures the complexity of mental health crisis situations. Officers test their decision-making, risk assessment and de-escalation capabilities while taking advantage of the fully realized environment to engage tactical considerations such as positioning, containment and control, and time and distance.

The VR-MHCR is poised to revolutionize police training in Ontario with an immersive experiential training package that fully integrates the DePICT™ evaluation framework.

Street Smarts VR Software

Street Smarts VR (SSVR) is an industry leader in law enforcement-focused immersive virtual reality (VR) training. Since 2017, SSVR has developed a deployable offline platform to deliver training, including a patented approach to integrating an officer’s full suite of duty equipment, from OC Spray to a C8 Carbine.

The expansive customization tools allow for an ever-expanding library of full-branching scenarios to more easily meet new 2024 CSPA requirements and create a best-in-class simulation environment.

For more information, email info@streetsmartsvr.com or visit streetsmartsvr.com.