On the Job 

The marriage was inevitable: Immersive virtual reality and continuing professional training — VR and CPT — have tied the knot in Ohio.

The beauty of this union? The state’s 33,000 law enforcement officers can use VR training and related courses on OPOTA Online to earn all 16 hours of the general/elective credits needed to fulfill the statewide CPT requirements. (The eight hours of mandatory CPT courses cannot be fulfilled through VR training as of yet.)

It also means that officers have a wider selection of technology-enhanced, scenario-based CPT courses to choose from and — because they’re online — can take the courses whenever and wherever they choose.

“You don’t send officers out to face 21st-century threats with 20th-century training — it puts lives at risk,” Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost said. “Virtual reality gives us the ability to mimic high-stress, lifelike scenarios without real-world consequences, leading to better training and, in turn, smarter policing in Ohio.”

It was just last summer when the Ohio Peace Officer Training Academy introduced VR as a pillar of its training regimen, intended for use in both basic and advanced law enforcement education and across many roles, including first-line supervisors, field training officers, patrol officers and tactical officers.The move was one of several sweeping changes recommended by the Attorney General’s Blue Ribbon Task Force on the Future of Police Training.

OPOTA’s initial focus was on building a library of VR video simulations, developing a corps of certified trainers, and distributing VR headsets to police academies and OPOTA’s six regional training partners statewide.

With tremendous progress achieved in all those areas — 12 VR simulations have been created, 270 instructors have been certified, and 160 headsets have been distributed — OPOTA Executive Director Tom Quinlan directed his curriculum team to develop multiple one-hour, CPT-themed courses for each of the 12 VR simulations.

The courses — free and available only through OPOTA Online — cover report writing, domestic violence, officer wellness, leadership and other topics. Each course yields one hour of CPT credit.
That means that an officer who completes a virtual reality simulation and debrief led by a certified instructor would qualify for an hour of CPT credit. Having done that, he or she could get additional CPT credit — up to 3 more hours — by going to the VR course catalog on OPOTA Online and taking the lessons that correspond to the VR simulation. Each VR simulation has either two or three one-hour courses connected to it.

For example, three one-hour CPT courses on OPOTA Online relate to the VR simulation titled Domestic Violence on Oak Street; one course goes into greater depth about domestic violence, one discusses officer wellness and the third deals with leadership issues. All told, four CPT credit hours can be earned by watching the domestic violence VR simulation and taking the related courses.

OPOTA’s VR simulations, produced in collaboration with Ohio University, emphasize situational decision-making, which, research shows, decreases use of force, discretionary arrests and officer injuries. The training is designed to help officers develop “soft skills” (such as listening and de-escalation techniques) rather than tactical skills (such as shooting or making arrests).

Once trainees put on the headsets, they are “dropped” into the virtual world of the scenario, which offers a 360-degree perspective that enables them to turn to look in all directions.

VR training activates several senses at once and accommodates various learning styles better than traditional classroom courses. Consequently, it generally improves a person’s ability to process, distill and retain key information, allowing for more thorough and faster learning.

Robert Strausbaugh, OPOTA’s director of advanced training, said the VR rollout is on schedule and evolving as planned. In addition to the six new VR simulations and the steady increase in certified instructors, he points to another measure of success: Police chiefs and sheriffs are buying their own VR equipment and having OPOTA upload the videos to them.

In many cases, he said, the money used to buy the headsets comes from the state reimbursement that agencies receive to cover the time officers spend on CPT.
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VR library continues to grow

OPOTA recently introduced a second series of six VR training simulations, each between eight and 12 minutes long. The simulations must be led by an OPOTA-certified VR instructor, who conducts a 45-minute debrief as part of the training.
Series 1 addresses these topics:

• Teen brain
• Suicide prevention
• Domestic violence
• Mental health check
• Irate families
• School violence

Series 2, which builds on material in the first series, addresses these topics:

• Communication
• Community engagement
• De-escalation
• Decision making
• Using time as a tool
• Ethical and legal considerations
• Officer safety and wellness
• Scene assessment
• Suspect interaction
• Tactical considerations