Project:
In social professions, workers have to handle difficult situations. There is a need to train these workers to reflect about their own emotions as well as the emotions of the ones they must interact with.
Our work concerns the social profession of “First responders”.
A first responder is the first medically trained responder who arrives on a scene, like a police officer, a firefighter or a paramedic. First responders experience a lot of stressful situations, the handling of which requires a certain amount of skill, as there are many factors that can cause both mental and physical duress in an emergency situation.
Their profession requires them to remain composed, atleast outwardly, in order to be able to manage these stressful situations and handle victims and bystanders in such situations.
The goal of our project was to train first responders to manage and become aware of their displayed emotions. We also offered techniques in order to calm oneself down. The project aims at aiding in the training of first responders, particularly the ones who are undergoing training for the first time, in learning how to portray composure and respond appropriately in a difficult situation.
Conceptually, the training would encompass a simulation room equipped to recreate a stressful situation as realistic as possible, inducing stress in the process. This approach requires a life-size setup, including various multimedia devices and ambience controlling equipment. The trainee would, for instance, be subjected to a life-like simulation of an emergency scene, with a simulated victim coming up to ask for assistance.
The trainee’s response to such a scene would be recorded and another scene would be played by an expert behind the scenes, depending on the trainee’s expressed response. A sequence of a few simulated scenes would be played in all, and the recorded data collected and analysed using OpenSSI. Feedback would be provided to the trainee in terms of a graph displaying expressed emotions, and feedback from an expert who watched their interaction. This would allow the trainee to reflect on their expressed emotions, and train themselves accordingly.
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