therapy in the time of covid? video conferencing rig for group therapy

June 27, 2021 11:18 AM

Please help me with a video conferencing setup for a group that meets both face to face and online. There is a therapy group of 15-20 people that used to have weekly meetings in a room. Since COVID-19 the group holds the weekly meeting on Zoom, which proved to be a very successful experience for the participants. As the lockdown is being lifted (the group is based in the UK) there is a possibility to resume face to face meetings, but some group members are unable to meet face to face due to health reasons and want to continue joining online.

The question is what is the audio video equipment that can make it possible to have an experiential meeting for people who are joining remotely and face to face.
In this scenario there will be 10 people in a room with another 10 joining remotely online. Because it is a therapy group it feels important that both the remote participants and the ones physically in the room will have a similar experience as much as possible. As it is an experiential therapy group, body language and facial expressions are important. I considered the basic setup of a webcam and multidirectional microphone / speaker and a TV screen to show the remote participants, but it will mean that the experience of those who are joining remotely and those in the room will be markedly different. I.e. if I am online I will see a video of the whole room, with tiny figures. If I am in the room I will see the remote participants on a TV screen.
Another possibility is for the participants who are physically in the room to use their own phones to log into a Zoom call, in this way those who are joining remotely will be able to see faces in closeup.
My question is whether there is technology that can make this work better? Perhaps a webcam that automatically zooms onto the person in the room who is speaking?
Are there any other solutions that can work for a mixed group of face to face and online participants?
Thank you!

posted by slimeline to Technology (4 answers total)

I work at a company that has been primarily remote for 13 years, and we have a simple rule: "If one attendee is remote, every attendee should be remote". Your instincts are correct. Ask each attendee to bring a mobile device and headphones if possible.
posted by AaRdVarK at 11:59 AM on June 27, 2021 [4 favorites]

If you can have all participants in the room around a table, the Meeting Owl webcam does a good job of switching camera focus to the speaker.
posted by corvine at 12:57 PM on June 27, 2021

Agree strongly that hybrid meetings simply do not work effectively :(
posted by sixswitch at 1:03 PM on June 27, 2021 [1 favorite]

My work has long held hybrid meetings for staff; we have the physically present folks in a semicircle around a table with a camera at the front, then have a big screen with the remote folks projected onto it. It's...fine but not ideal.

We also do group work with clients. We have just officially announced to clients that we will not do hybrid because it just doesn't work for therapeutic endeavors. If anyone is virtual, everyone needs to be virtual, or they are just really left out. It's just like when most people are on video and one person joins by phone; they can't fully participate and really have a sub-par experience. Therapy is really different from a staff meeting that way.
posted by assenav at 8:44 AM on July 1, 2021