CALMSTEP: A Social Robot for Graded Exposure Practice at Home

Dutch mental healthcare is under sustained pressure due to staff shortages and long waiting times. This is particularly challenging for anxiety and phobia care, where exposure therapy is highly effective but often therapist-intensive and largely delivered in the clinic. In addition, key triggers are difficult to plan or reproduce in a controlled way in everyday life, such as thunderstorms, fireworks, and sirens, and many clients struggle to maintain exposure homework consistently at home.
In this KIEM MV project we explore how a social robot can support exposure practice at home in a controlled and clinically responsible way. The project builds on an earlier exploration with anxiety treatment centre IPZO and an initial student prototype: a “cloud robot” that can generate light flashes and sound, allowing the user to increase intensity step-by-step. We focus on the conditions needed for responsible use: the robot’s role (e.g., coach with buddy-like support), interaction design (timing, encouragement, pacing), and essential safeguards such as stop rules, intensity limits, and options for therapist oversight.
Alongside IPZO, Nationale Politie participates with a concrete need: supporting officers who experience strong trigger reactions after incidents and helping them return to duty responsibly and as quickly as possible. NLRobotics contributes technical validation and dissemination within the Dutch robotics ecosystem. Vertelknuffel participates as the consortium’s innovative impact entrepreneur, actively shaping the pathway to societal earning capacity by translating research outcomes into feasible adoption requirements and a provider-facing implementation concept, and by identifying realistic routes to scaling beyond the KIEM year.
The project will deliver a research based prototype and evidence-informed design guidelines, alongside governance/safeguard requirements for responsible use. Together with an exploratory follow-up roadmap, these outputs will provide a solid foundation to design and apply for a follow-up pilot in at least two settings and subsequent effectiveness and implementation research.