The Making of Lena's Journey

The power of story-driven Virtual Reality video has proven to build empathy and understanding in the training of new employees at Western State Mental Hospital in Washington state, the largest psychiatric hospital west of the Mississippi. The five-part Virtual Reality (VR) video series was created to immerse new employees into the lives of those living with severe mental illness. The goal was to help staff better understand what patients perceive and what they are going through.
The training program is the first of its kind to leverage 360 video technology and storytelling in this way. On the first day of training, new employees get introduced to Lena, a single mom and a musician who is living with schizophrenia. Due to her disorienting illness, she makes a terrible mistake. Trainees go with her on her journey through the legal system and eventual admittance to Western State Hospital (WSH). The State Hospital partnered with Chocolate Milk & Donuts (CM&D), an Austin, Texas based VR/AR creative agency that specializes in immersive storytelling to bring the story to life in a headset. Collaboration between CM&D staff, hospital employees, mental health professionals, and even some hospital patients brought Lena’s debilitating mental illness and character traits to life.
Lena’s Journey is the cornerstone of WSH’s newly revamped 2-week employee training program that focuses on the importance of verbal de-escalation techniques, understanding mental illness and person-centered care