Trauma-informed design research
Design practice that helps not harms.
Designers and change makers who work in the social outcomes space are passionate people who want to help and support change in the world, yet it can be very easy for them to do harm, despite their very best intentions. It is critical that those working with people who have experienced trauma to be trauma-informed in their practice so that they can help and not harm.
Since 2008, I have been working with vulnerable people and people who have experienced trauma as a Human-centred Design practitioner and Social Designer. In past years, and on numerous occasions I have felt ill-equipped to be doing this work. Ranging from managing my own wellbeing to ensuring that the people who I am working with feel safe. I don’t feel that we as Designers & Researchers, know enough about trauma and feel it is important that we are more trauma-informed in our work. Without understanding Trauma and despite our best intentions it can be very easy for us to cause harm. As a discipline, I strongly feel we need to become more trauma-informed.
I took a bit of time off consulting last year after a particularly bust contract to look after my own wellbeing and feed my learning addiction. I completed an online certificate in trauma-informed care, holding the question in mind: how might I be more trauma-informed in my practice? After taking this course, I wanted to share what I had learnt and my reflections so that others might become more informed in their Design Research work. I first presented a talk at the 2021 UX Australia Design Research Conference and then started teaching online classes about Trauma-Informed Design Research to practitioners and teams.
For the past 6 months I have been running a course in Trauma informed Design Research and have so far had approximately 150 people joined from all over the world. I am also running this course for design teams at design agencies and government departments. In this article I will share some findings from data generated from the course activities with Designers, Researchers and change-makers. (The data was generated from 6 workshops conducted from April to June 2021 with 151 participants).
But first, lets talk about Trauma Informed care.
Trauma Informed Care
We are living in an era of trauma. An estimated 65% of Australians have experienced a potentially traumatic event in their lifetime (1) and in the USA, 70% of people have experienced a traumatic event and within behavioural health, over 90% of clients have experienced trauma (2). These statistics are higher in Aboriginal, prison populations and socially disadvantaged groups.
Trauma is defined as “an event, a series of events or a set of circumstances that is experienced by an individual as physically or emotionally harmful or life threatening and that has lasting adverse effects on the individual’s functioning and mental, physical, social, emotional, or spiritual well-being” (3). While everyone has experienced trauma, not everyone has been traumatised.
Trauma informed care recognises the widespread impact of trauma and understands the need to create environments for healing and recovery, rather than environments and situations that could inadvertently be re-traumatise. Trauma-informed care incorporates principles of safety, choice, collaboration, trust and empowerment.
Trauma Informed Design Research
Human centred design (HCD) research can cause harm for people who have experienced trauma .Trauma informs experience and people’s ability to talk about their experiences. Understanding experience is central to human-centred design practice. Here are some ways HCD research can cause harm:
- Design research practices can resemble psychotherapy, yet we are not trained psychotherapists and can not always know how to respond to people appropriately.
- Power differentials have often led to traumatic experiences for people. Interactions without choice and safety can feel like ‘Power over’ and can potentially cause distress.
- Ambiguity in design processes can often feel uncomfortable and people who have experienced trauma can feel agitated when there is a lack of clarity.
- A lack of control within design processes can resemble other life experiences where people do not have control. This can be potentially triggering.
- And last but by no means least, design can be extractive. Design can function to extract ideas from people to inform new products and services that are not necessarily in the best interests of the people consulted. For much, much more on this check out Design Justice : Community-Led Practices to Build the Worlds we Need By Sasha Costanza-Chock.
Common Practices that are not Trauma Informed
In one of the workshop activities, participants discussed what practices they have partaken in or observed that would not be considered to be trauma informed. The following themes were found in the data:
Research Planning
- Really short time/duration, short project time line
- Not considering what participants might need to enable them to participate safely
- Not working with lived experience SMEs on appropriate language/ approach
- Researchers not having enough contextual knowledge in advance of research engagement
- Preferencing quantity rather than quality of interviews
- Being inflexible with time and location
- Locating in a hard to get to place or place that might re-traumatise
- Not being aware of your own biases and privilege
Conducting Qualitative Research
- Lack of transparency on how research is going to be used, research goals and context
- Using inappropriate language that enforces power structures
- Not conducting research in safe places
- Lack of cultural/historical awareness
- Lack of consideration of who is the most appropriate to facilitate (e.g. gender, culture)
- No time for establishing relationships, genuine connection or reflection
- Not establishing rapport — jumping straight into the interview/activities
- Rushing people — no pauses, no breaks
- Stopping participants mid-sentence because their story is not relevant to the research objectives
- Intrusive research questions with disregard for safety
- Ignoring physical cues, signs of distress
- Forcing eye contact
- Not considering power differentials
- Not allowing participants to opt out of activities or not answer questions
- To many observers, not introducing observers or not disclosing who might be watching from another room
- Recording without the subject knowing
- Not asking for consent or providing option to revoke consent after the interview is complete
- No value exchange/compensation for participation
- Not explaining where information will go and how it will be used
Disclosure
- Responding to disclosure with awkward silence
- Asking for details about traumatic experience (forcing disclosure)
- Fail to acknowledge participant’s trauma experience
- Minimising the participant’s lived experience
After conducting research
- No referral paths if participants become distressed
- Taking participant ideas and never crediting them
- Lots of promises and no outcomes (we over estimate our own ability as designers)
- Promising a community project as a result and never feeding back
- Don’t close the loop with participants so they don’t know what resulted from the research
Researcher/Team Wellbeing
- Ignore trauma on your own team and within your self
- No staff support/wellbeing services engaged
- Do not debrief after research sessions
- No awareness of Vicarious Trauma and its risks
Suggested Focus Areas for Change
Training participants next discussed what they felt was most important for Designers and Design Researchers to change in order to facilitate more trauma informed design research practice. These foci are listed below under themes as How Might We questions.
1. Trauma Informed Awareness
- How might we raise awareness of trauma informed practice amongst our colleagues and clients?
- How might we educate stakeholders so existing power structure don’t override trauma informed practice for reasons of budget, time, ignorance?
- How might trauma informed design practices be included in design education?
2. Safety, Choice and Control
- How might we ensure safety and wellbeing amongst participants?
- How might we balance power differentials?
- How might we create the enabling conditions to move at the speed of trust?
- How might we enable greater choice and control for participants during design research processes?
- How might we facilitate greater flexibility within our process to allow for emergence and serendipity?
- How might we enable Design Researchers to easily link participants with appropriate after care?
- How might we support researchers to identify and respond to trigger responses and participant distress?
- How might we educate about Vicarious Trauma and facilitate wellbeing within our design and research teams?
3. Collaboration
- How might we collaborate with allies, cultural experts, SMEs, people with Lived Experience, communities and social workers to support trauma informed design research practice?
- How might we genuinely collaborate with participants throughout the design process and over time?
- How might we make space for emergent collaborative opportunities and future connection?
4. Capacity Building and Empowerment
- How might we be strengths based in our research practice?
- How might we create value for participants during the research phase?
- How might we empower, and build capacity amongst our participants?
- How might we involve community in our research planning, analysis and reporting?
5. Reporting and closing the loop
- How might we close the loop with participants?
- How might we provide ways for participants to tell their own stories, raising the voice of Lived Experience respectfully and safely?
All in!
Trauma is very common, particularly in these uncertain times. As more and more organisations become trauma informed, designers too need to become more trauma informed in their work. As a discipline, we need to start talking about this very important topic with each other, with our colleagues and with our clients.
Trauma-informed care is the responsibility of everyone in the organisation and requires cultural change. Trauma informed organisations have policies and procedures in place to ensure staff know how to act in trauma informed ways when at work. Consider making your own guide or charter to inform design research at your organisation. Within the training we finish with co-creating a charter for Trauma Informed Design Research.
If you are interested in doing this training and creating a Trauma Informed Design Research charter for your team get in touch.
#letsstartamovement
REFERENCES
- Creamer et al. (2001), Post-traumatic stress disorder: findings from the Australian National Survey of Mental Health and Well-being, Psychological Medicine, 2001; 31 (7):1237–1247. https://digital.library.adelaide.edu.au/dspace/bitstream/2440/6593/1/hdl6593.pdf
- National Council for community Behavioural Healthcare https://www.brighamandwomens.org/assets/BWH/womens-health/connors-center/pdfs/how-to-manage-trauma-infographic.pdf
- Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. SAMHSA’s concept of trauma and guidance for a trauma-informed approach. Rockville2014. (SMA) 14–4884
- NSW Government Mental Health Network https://www.aci.health.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0008/561977/ACI-Mental-Health-Trauma-informed-care-mental-health-NSW.pdf
