--- title: "VR and AI roleplay training for government frontline staff" description: "Frontline staff rehearse the counter, the waiting area and the conversation before the doors open, in VR or AI roleplay. For agencies and departments." canonical: https://peopletechrevolution.com/work/industries/government-public-sector --- [Our Work](https://peopletechrevolution.com/work) / [Industries](https://peopletechrevolution.com/work/industries) # Government and public sector training, no headset needed A council event, a reception desk and a classroom run the same experience on a headset, a tablet, a phone or a desktop, so no visitor and no officer is left out. The moment ## The counter that turns aggressive at ten to five A customer service officer at a council counter has a man in front of her whose permit has been refused, a queue behind him watching, and a security guard on his break. What she says in the next ten seconds decides whether he leaves, shouts, or comes back tomorrow with a complaint about her. Nobody has ever let her practise it. Your counter staff face the man whose permit was refused, and try the sentence three ways. Your case workers stand at the suburban doorstep and practise the visit that escalates. Your officers hear the disclosure nobody was ready for, and answer it in the interview room. Work in this sector ## Central Coast Council: disability awareness Central Coast Council commissioned a VR experience as part of its disability access and inclusion strategy. Co-designed with the Council’s Access and Inclusion Reference Group, it shows a beach and a shopping centre from inside the disability. Central Coast Council’s experience has run across the community more than 200 times, and teacher training, council staff training and CSIRO-facilitated sessions have incorporated it. The project began before the [Disability Royal Commission](https://disability.royalcommission.gov.au/publications/final-report)’s 2023 final report. [Read the Central Coast Council case study. Your residents wait at the service counter and your staff learn what the wait feels like.](https://peopletechrevolution.com/work/case-studies/central-coast-council-disability-awareness) Your library staff meet the person who cannot find the words, and give them time. Your counter staff learn to look at the person they are serving, not the interpreter. 222 recommendations from the Disability Royal Commission's 2023 final report, which found community attitudes, not physical access alone, a fundamental driver of poor outcomes for people with disability. [Final Report, 2023](https://disability.royalcommission.gov.au/publications/final-report) > " The experience was an incredible eye opener into the difficulties faced by people with a disability to engage in everyday activities " Program participant, Disability awareness VR program, Central Coast Council Working in government or the public sector? [Open the contact form](https://peopletechrevolution.com/work/industries/government-public-sector#contact) Ask our CEO Simon Lowe’s Digital Twin a question Advance Queensland ## Supporting the Mater pilot [Advance Queensland](https://advance.qld.gov.au/innovation-in-queensland/innovation-stories/people-tech-revolutions-virtual-reality-training-package-for-mater-hospital), the Queensland Government’s innovation program, awarded People Tech Revolution $40,000 to help build the Mater Education VR pilot, Speaking with Good Judgement: Through the Looking Glass. Mater Education contributed a further $110,000 through its partnership with Advance Queensland’s Corporate Innovation Network. The pilot let hospital staff practise psychologically safe feedback conversations inside VR recreations of real Mater environments. People Tech Revolution's virtual reality training package for Mater Hospital staff. Queensland Innovation films the Mater pilot, 2023. - [Read the Mater Education case study](https://peopletechrevolution.com/work/case-studies/mater-speaking-with-good-judgement) - [Healthcare and medical](https://peopletechrevolution.com/work/industries/healthcare-medical) - [Advance Queensland’s story about the project](https://advance.qld.gov.au/innovation-in-queensland/innovation-stories/people-tech-revolutions-virtual-reality-training-package-for-mater-hospital) > "VR can preemptively address these issues by providing immersive induction programs where workers can learn about the cultural nuances of their new environment before they even set foot in it. They can practice interacting with colleagues from different backgrounds, getting a feel for what is considered respectful or inappropriate in that specific context." Simon Lowe CEO, People Tech Revolution, on preparing city workers for postings in rural health services. [The Cusp of a Revolution, Global Best Practice Group, October 2024](https://globalbestpracticegroup.com/airevolution/) In common ## What our public-sector work has in common One is a local council partnership that commissioned public-facing training for its community. The other is a Queensland Government-supported healthcare pilot. Both were delivered on more than one device, so no visitor needed a headset. The Australian Government’s own [Digital Inclusion Standard](https://www.digital.gov.au/policy/digital-experience/digital-inclusion-standard) now makes multi-channel access a formal requirement. Your officers brief a room that will push back, and hear the pushback before the real room does. Your field staff wait to be invited up the steps, and learn what happens when they do not. Your parks officers run the tailgate briefing on the tablet in the ute, no headset needed. If you work for a council ## Local government has a page of its own The counter, the home visit and the depot gate are written for councils separately, along with what Central Coast Council did and who in a council usually takes it forward. [Councils and local government](https://peopletechrevolution.com/work/industries/local-government). Your permits officers hear about the renovation before they explain why it cannot be approved. Your rates staff answer an older man’s question without the jargon that makes him ask again. Your shelter officers talk a family through an adoption that might not be the right one. The four conversations ## The conversations frontline staff ask us for The counter that turns aggressive, the home visit that escalates, the disclosure nobody was ready for, and de-escalation itself. Staff rehearse them in [customer aggression training](https://peopletechrevolution.com/training/customer-aggression-training) and [VR de-escalation training](https://peopletechrevolution.com/training/vr-de-escalation-training), with a person who reacts and a facilitator afterwards. Your staff stand back with both hands open and find out what the other person does next. Your outreach officers talk at the doorway with a woman who has not decided to let them in. Your caseworkers sit across from a distressed client and practise the pause before the answer. Before the doors open ## Before the doors open, and after they close A service centre is busy for part of its day. The rest is when staff work through the exchange they know is coming: a written run between customers, at the same screen the work is done on, then out loud from the waiting area, in the chair the person receiving the decision will sit in. A refusal has to be delivered clearly and kindly in one breath, and written practice is where staff find those words. Your officers work through the refusal behind the counter while the queue is still empty. Your officers rehearse it from the waiting area, in the chair the customer will be in. Your staff get somewhere to say no wrongly before somebody in the queue hears it. - [AI practice partners](https://peopletechrevolution.com/ai/ai-roleplay-practice) More moments ## Counters, doorways, community halls and a depot yard The rest of a public-sector day has its own hard conversations: the depot handover, the digital skills class where one person is lost, the bushfire briefing to a colleague who thinks it will not happen here. Each is a scenario your staff can run before the shift. Your depot crew leaders hand over the work so that the next shift does not redo it. Your library tutors run the digital skills class for the person who is pretending to keep up. Your readiness officers brief the colleague who does not believe it will happen here. Through the headset ## A doorway, an emergency planning room, a community hall Inside the headset the resident, the incident controller or the objector is in front of you, waiting. The older woman in her doorway, the incident controller who needs a decision now, the two residents in the community hall: each answers what your staff say, not what they meant to say. Your outreach staff meet the older woman waiting in her doorway, and get the reply she gives. Your incident controllers make the tabletop decision with the room waiting on it. Your planners hear the objection in the community hall, with the other residents listening. Co-designed ## Scenarios shaped with the people who will run them A policy officer practises at the lectern. A service officer rehearses at the airport counter. A journalist puts the hard question with a facilitator beside the interviewee. Each scenario was co-designed with the people who run it, in the room they run it in. Your policy officers practise the briefing at the lectern before the minister hears it. Your service officers rehearse the counter conversation with the traveller who missed the flight. Your spokespeople take the hard question from a journalist, with a facilitator for the debrief. Working in government or the public sector? [Open the contact form](https://peopletechrevolution.com/work/industries/government-public-sector#contact) Ask our CEO Simon Lowe’s Digital Twin a question - [Our approach to immersive training](https://peopletechrevolution.com/xr) - [The PTR VR Library](https://peopletechrevolution.com/xr/ptr-vr-library) - [Councils and local government](https://peopletechrevolution.com/work/industries/local-government) - [All industries](https://peopletechrevolution.com/work/industries) ## Sources and further reading The standard, the report and the government story the copy above draws on. ### [Digital Inclusion Standard](https://www.digital.gov.au/policy/digital-experience/digital-inclusion-standard) Digital Transformation Agency, Australian Government · effective 1 January 2025 The requirement that public services reach people through more than one channel. ### [Final Report, Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability](https://disability.royalcommission.gov.au/publications/final-report) Disability Royal Commission · 2023 Community attitudes, not physical access alone, as a fundamental driver of poor outcomes. ### [People Tech Revolution’s virtual reality training package for Mater Hospital](https://advance.qld.gov.au/innovation-in-queensland/innovation-stories/people-tech-revolutions-virtual-reality-training-package-for-mater-hospital) Advance Queensland, Queensland Government · last updated 10 August 2023 The Queensland Government’s own story of the Mater pilot and its funding.