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SECTER: Simulated Environment for Counseling, Training, Evaluation, and Rehabilitation

“The potential demand for these kinds of programs is enormous. Every single school, group home, residential program, children's psych unit, and juvenile prison facility in America is looking for - and already has a budget for - clinical materials that will reach out and grab their kids and engage them in treatment -- and do it without boring them to death!”

Les Paschall, C.E.O.
CFG Health Systems

Many children in the US have a behavioral or mental health disorder that, if not addressed, can lead to school failure, family conflicts, drug abuse, violence, and even suicide. Multiple factors can contribute to behavioral disorders: difficulty reading social cues; attentive difficulties; impulsivity; low self-awareness; failing to take past events into account when in new situations; and poor communication skills. Common interventions tend to focus on understanding the perspectives of others, developing strategies for dealing with new situations, improving communication skills, and discovering triggers that lead to undesirable behavior. Methods used to achieve these goals include storytelling, role-play, and the practice of social strategies. While these methods can be effective for some, they are inherently flawed for many children and adolescents due to attentive difficulties, trouble tracking details, and often, resistance to engage in one-on-one therapy. Computer-based environments offer a unique opportunity to draw children and adolescents into therapy, sustain their interest, and make the therapeutic process more tangible, leading to improved outcomes.

SECTER, a Greenleaf Institute Education and Behavioral Healthcare Initiative project in collaboration with the Center for Family Guidance, is a computer-based approach to treating behavioral disorders using a multiplayer immersive environment. SECTER is intended to magnify and leverage the skills and experience of clinicians, not replace them. Through the use of computer-generated virtual environments, children and adolescents can be treated for a wide range of behavioral disorders. The focus of SECTER is to facilitate role-play, practice of interpersonal skills, exploration of past behavior, and drug and alcohol refusal skills. In addition to real-time capabilities for clinicians to interact with their client, the vision for SECTER includes playback capabilities that allow for the examination of sessions from multiple perspectives, including the capability to see events through the eyes of other participants.