On Veterans Day 2011, the Veterans Affairs of NY/NJ and Kognito Interactive will launch "Family of Heroes" a new avatar-based resiliency & PTSD training simulation for the 1 million veteran families in New York and New Jersey. We invite you to join us for a free webinar to learn about the development and assessment of the simulation.

In the 45-minute webinar, we will demo the training, discuss its development, the roll out plan, results of a randomized controlled study, and an overview of an upcoming MIRECC study. The webinar will be conducted twice.

In “Family of Heroes”, learners enter a virtual environment, assume the role of various family members and engage in realistic practice conversations with avatars that act and respond like real veterans experiencing post-deployment stress. A demo of the training can be viewed here

The webinar will be conducted by Ann Feder, VISN 3's Mental Health Programs Manager. Alejandro Interian Ph.D, VANJ, Clinical Psychologist & MIRECC Investigator, and Dr. Glenn Albright, Kognito's Director of Applied Research, which is the company that collaborated with VISN 3 to develop the simulation and is in the process of introducing it to other areas in the U.S.

We hope you will choose to join us. Please forward this invitation to any of your colleagues who might be interested in joining us as well.

Ann Feder, LCSW Mental Health Care Line Program Manager Veteran Affairs of NY/NJ Healthcare Network Email: Ann.Feder@va.gov Tel: (718) 584-9000 ext. 3719

Glenn Albright, Ph.D Director of Applied Research =Kognito Interactive Email: glenn1@kognito.com Tel: (212) 675-9234