PA DOC: System Expansion of Remote Zoom Visits and OJJDP COIP Second Chance Grant (PID022)

11am – 11.45am EDT, 26 October 2022 ‐ 45 mins

Parallel Workshops

Learn about an innovative idea funded by an over $680,000 federal 3-year grant to the PA DOC to connect minor children to their incarcerated parents through virtual reality in two components. It will be used for the child and incarcerated parent to experience a VR adventure, like a balloon ride, at the same time through a Zoom visit to create bonding and have fun together. The child will experience this remote visit at a community provider who will offer support to the family. The second component is where the incarcerated parent will roleplay by talking to an avatar child within the parenting program lessons to build their parenting skillsets. Penn State University is the evaluator of this project ending 9/30/2023. A VR demo will be offered to audience volunteers to experience an immersion and for the audience to consider VR applications for their environments. We will also discuss the agency’s work to expand remote visits from end of life and funeral to approved family and friend.

Speakers

Deb Sahd

Special Assistant to the Secretary, Pennsylvania Department of Corrections, USA

Find out more

Ethan Moeller

Director, Virtual Training Partners, USA

Find out more

Deb Sahd

Special Assistant to the Secretary, Pennsylvania Department of Corrections, USA

Special Assistant to Secretary of PA Dept of Corrections w/over 34 years, began at the agency’s first prototypical in 1988. Promoted to Central Office in 1996 administratively with the Regional Deputy Secretaries, to the Secretary’s Office working with four different Secretaries.

Driven by sustainable change, asked to lead wellness effort for agency. Worked with BetaGov on randomized controlled trials benefiting staff/agency, e.g., staff meditation pilot; seriously mentally ill virtual reality (VR) pilot with positive measurable outcomes. Established GoFundMe to support staff in crisis. Is lead for COVER (Corrections Outreach for Veterans and Employee Restoration) providing peer support by institutional chapters with staff programs and activities.

Oversight of Children of Incarcerated Parents brought a $680,436 grant to improve the child/parent connections through VR using adventure VR visits and evidence-based parenting programs with an interactive child avatar for role playing with incarcerated parent. Identified need and is lead to create a minor child ID in the database system for data dives and support through reentry.

Oversees Grievance Office managing all inmate grievances. Is Agency VC Coordinator working with the courts and Immigration for best practices. With the state courts and GTL, developed interactive scheduling system with cancellation and rescheduling automations.

Developed pilot program to provide free inmate attorney-client phone access removing barriers for confidentiality and improved efficiencies; implemented statewide.

Pivotal to implement Zooms for inmate family funerals and end of life visits mitigating security issues and family coverage costs.

Traveled with team to Scandinavia in 2019 for three-country prison tours of best practices for customization in PA with a focus on staff wellness. Chair of AWEC Wellness Committee. PA College of Art/Design graduate. Owner/creator of pastry company and musician with original recordings.

Ethan Moeller

Director, Virtual Training Partners, USA

Ethan is a trailblazer in virtual reality training technology. He was founder and CEO of Nsena, the first company to offer virtual reality training to corrections and law enforcement. Ethan has provided pioneering virtual reality technology to corrections departments throughout the US with a focus on helping the incarcerated and re-entrants succeed. His initial projects aided Juvenile Lifers in acclimating to life outside of prison, helping them with basic life skills, ranging from how to use an ATM to de-escalation in the workplace and at home. His most recent project was partnering with a state affected by the opioid epidemic to use virtual reality at the crossroads of opioid addiction and the prison system. The objective being to help reduce relapse. The ultimate goal of this and all his projects is to help re-entrants succeed for the benefit of themselves, their families and their communities. Ethan also developed a novel virtual reality training platform for police. This platform broadens the scope of simulator training to include skill sets such as de-escalation and community policing in a realistic virtual environment. Ethan has collaborated with companies such as Verizon and Hewlett Packard to expand the limits of virtual reality. He has long standing relationships within the VR industry from hardware manufacturers to cutting edge research facilities. Ethan sold Nsena in December of 2020 to a publicly traded company focused on new training technologies. Ethan now helps organizations understand how best to adopt virtual reality, taking them step by step through the process of understanding their needs, selecting vendors and implementing the best solution. Ethan’s consulting firm is Virtual Training Partners (virtualtrainingpartners.com).