Training programs / For aged care and home care educators

For aged care and home care educators: practice that maps to the training rules

Competency-based training, dementia, in-service hours and the record an assessor reads.

Your questions

Does this count toward our required training?

Australia names competencies; the United States names hours and accepts a pseudo-patient.

A VR aged care and disability services training scenario in which a care worker walks beside an older man holding a handrail in a corridor. — A carer and resident at the handrail.

A VR aged care and disability services training scenario in which a young support worker stands alone in a staff alcove. — A new support worker in an alcove.

In a front room at dusk, a woman with a bag over her arm talks to a worker wearing a headset and holding a notebook, an older man watching from his armchair. — A handover in a front room.

Australia

What the strengthened Standards ask of training

The Aged Care Act 2024 started on 1 November 2025, with the strengthened Aged Care Quality Standards.

A support worker wearing a headset sits beside an older woman in a sunroom with plants at the window. — A support worker beside an older woman.

Outcome 2.9: training that answers incidents

Providers “must provide aged care workers with training and supervision to enable them to effectively perform their roles” (Outcome 2.9). Action 2.9.4 wants a training system “responsive to feedback, complaints, incidents, identified risks and the outcomes of regular aged care worker performance reviews”. A scenario written from an incident can be a strategy in that system, subject to your own assessment.

A simulated aged-care hallway. A man in his mid-eighties stands holding the rail as a carer wearing the headset approaches. — A carer and resident in a hallway.

Action 2.9.6: competency-based, and dementia is named

“All aged care workers regularly receive competency-based training in relation to core matters, at a minimum”, including “caring for individuals living with dementia”. Competencies, not hours. Outcome 5.6 covers cognitive impairment. Practise the changed behaviour in dementia and changed behaviours training; restraint rules in restrictive practices training requirements.

United States

In-service hours, pseudo-patients and dementia

Federal rules name hours and accept simulation; states add dementia hours.

A community nurse greets an older woman. A VR training scenario for healthcare. — A community nurse greets an older woman.

Home health and hospice aides

Home health aides “must receive at least 12 hours of in-service training during each 12-month period”, which “may occur while an aide is furnishing care to a patient” (42 CFR 484.80(d)); hospice aides the same (418.76(d)). Some competencies are observed “with a patient or pseudo-patient”, defined as “a person trained to participate in a role-play situation, or a computer-based mannequin device” that interacts like the patients served (home health, hospice definitions). Check a simulated client against them.

A physiotherapist wearing a headset leans toward a seated older woman in a recliner. — A physiotherapist leans toward a seated woman.

Nursing homes and state rules

Nurse aide in-service training must be “no less than 12 hours per year” and “Include dementia management training and resident abuse prevention training.” (42 CFR 483.95(g)). States add dementia hours, for example Oregon’s OAR 411-054-0070; check your state rule before counting a session. Home care workplace violence: Joint Commission requirements.

The record

What to keep: attendance, in-service and competency records

Each answers a different rule.

A participant discusses an XR rehearsal with a facilitator. — A participant debriefs with a facilitator.

Each record, and the condition on it

Attendance: who practised, their role, the date, the scenario and the de-identified incident behind it. In-service training: it “must be supervised by a registered nurse” (484.80(d)(1), 418.76(d)(1)). Competency: the evaluation “must be performed by a registered nurse in consultation with other skilled professionals, as appropriate” (484.80(c)(3), 418.76(c)(3)). In Australia, map each competency to a core matter in Action 2.9.6.

A case manager leans toward an older man. A VR training scenario for aged care and disability services. — A case manager faces an older man.

People stand in a plain room, a woman gesturing as she speaks, wooden stools beside them, comparing the choices they made in a scenario. — A group compares choices after a scenario.

An elder sits in the good chair with her daughter beside her in a simulated regional aged-care room; a care coordinator in the headset listens rather than leads. — An elder, her daughter and a coordinator.

Where practice fits

Rehearse the exchange the rule is about

A frontline staff member wearing a headset stands with hands open at waist height, facing a simulated agitated adult.

De-escalation: the seconds before it turns

A manager wearing a headset sits opposite a simulated employee who is speaking carefully, hands together, rehearsing a sensitive workplace concern in a private meeting room.

Difficult conversations, rehearsed before they happen

A safety officer briefs new starters. A VR training scenario for workplace and enterprise.

Induction and onboarding for new starters

A younger man stands near an older woman. A first person VR training scenario for aged care and disability services, seen through the headset.

Dementia and changed behaviours training

How it runs

Run it the way your team already learns.

Workplace exchanges inside the VR Library.

Run it yourself Your facilitator runs PTR VR Library titles on standalone headsets.

Practice on a monitor, a laptop or a phone. An AI roleplay scenario for AI roleplay and practice.

In a browser Staff rehearse with an AI partner on a laptop, no headset.

A video call grid of people in their own rooms: a study, a kitchen, an office, a lounge, a home desk and a greenhouse.

Facilitated over video A PTR facilitator runs the debrief by video, wherever teams sit.

Facilitators hand over an XR practice session in a workshop room.

With your trainer A trainer you already know runs it, licensed and prepared by PTR.

PTR’s published work

What our results cover, and what they do not

Each result labelled by who measured it.

Inside the Mater build: an older patient sits up in a hospital bed, a meal tray across the blanket, curtains drawn beside him. — Inside the Mater build, at a bedside.

A hospital’s evaluation and a peer-reviewed paper

Mater Education’s own program evaluation of the VR program PTR built: over 96% of participants wanted more training in VR. In a peer-reviewed paper on VR inclusion training at Google, led by PTR co-founder Leonie Sanderson and built with Equal Reality, a subsidiary of People Tech Revolution, the 7 trainees who returned the optional survey gave 82% average agreement that it was better than Google’s standard DEI training. Our published work includes no aged care training result.

Download the Google research paper PDF Download the Mater case study PDF

An older resident and a carer talk in an aged-care garden, the kind of conversation the founders drove around the state to hear. — A resident and carer on a bench.

Aged care is where the founders began

Leonie Sanderson managed the QUT-linked Transforming Aged Care with Virtual Reality trials through The Ageing Revolution; the paper studied residents’ VR leisure sessions, not dementia training (what the study measured). Carked It, The Ageing Revolution’s card game about life, death and beyond, opens end-of-life conversations (age tech).