As designers and researchers, we strive to understand people’s experiences so that we can co-create services, systems, and policies that work more effectively. But I often ask myself:

What if the way we conduct research unintentionally harms the very people we’re trying to serve?

Whether we’re working in healthcare, legal, transportation, education, housing, or digital accessibility, many of the people we interview and co-design with have lived through distress, adversity, and/or trauma. Yet in most design research training, we’re not taught how to incorporate a trauma-informed lens into the design process.

Bridging the gap between design innovation and mental health

I’ve spent over a decade leading service and innovation design work across government, nonprofit, legal, healthcare, and technology sectors.

Alongside this, I became a licensed Psychotherapist and have since obtained advanced training in EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing), Somatic Therapies, Trauma Sensitive Yoga, the Gottman Methods, and more.

Now, I’m bridging both disciplines. I support designers, researchers, civic leaders, community managers, and other changemakers in bringing more trauma awareness into how we design and engage with people.

What is Trauma-Informed Design and Research?

Trauma-Informed Design is a systemic approach that weaves together psychological safety, power sensitivity, and ethics at every stage of the research process.

Research shows that trauma is widespread, with the CDC and ACE studies demonstrating its significant long-term impact on health, behaviour, and engagement (Felitti et al., 1998; CDC, 2023).

It asks us to consider:

How do trauma histories (personal, cultural, or systemic) affect the way people engage with us, or the way we as researchers engage with them?
How do we create an environment that helps people feel safe enough to share vulnerable experiences?
How can we make sure our methods or presence will not unintentionally re-trigger harm?
How do we empower people who may carry invisible stories of harm?
How do we support designers and researchers who may have had similar experiences to the topic of trauma at hand?
How do we prevent burnout and emotional fatigue of designers and researchers?

When research is trauma-informed, it improves the quality of insights, strengthens trust with communities, protects participants from harm, and protects researchers from burnout and emotional overload.

Trauma-Informed Care principles

The principles of Trauma-Informed Care come from SAMHSA—Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

The six principles are:

Safety: participants and staff feel physically and psychologically safe.
Peer support: peer support and mutual self-help are key as vehicles for establishing safety and hope, building trust, enhancing collaboration, and utilizing their lived experience to promote recovery and healing.
Trustworthiness and Transparency: Organizational decisions are conducted with the goal of building and maintaining trust with participants and staff.
Collaboration and Mutuality: importance is placed on partnering and leveling power differences between staff and service participants.
Cultural, Historical, & Gender Issues: culture and gender-responsive services are offered while moving beyond stereotypes/biases.
Empowerment, Voice and Choice: organizations foster a belief in the primacy of the people who are served to heal and promote recovery from trauma.

The risks of not incorporating Trauma-Informed Design

Designers working in community, public services, infrastructure, healthcare, and/or education are often in direct contact with people experiencing crisis, grief, marginalization, or systemic discrimination.

This is especially true in civic and participatory design, where co-creation and community engagement are key.

If we don’t bring trauma awareness into our methods, risks include:

Higher likelihood of re-triggering trauma with no support.
Unconsciously replicate the power dynamics that created harm in the first place.
Exclusion of marginalized communities.
Misinterpret emotionally complex responses as “unengaged.”
Lower quality research insights due to participants not feeling safe to share.
Lower engagement and poor service adoption.
Reduced trust in communities and services.
Increased emotional fatigue for participants and users.
Burnout among designers and researchers.
Reduced long-term impact and sustainability of the service.

Looking ahead: Supporting teams in Trauma-Informed Design

Many organizations, including the Center for Health Care Strategies (CHCS), National Child Traumatic Stress Network (NCTSN), and the UK Design Council, have begun calling for trauma-aware approaches in design and service delivery.

There are many, many areas to consider and prepare for, as well as many questions we need to discover answers for.

As both a licensed Psychotherapist and a Service Designer, my goal is to provide teaching and consultation to integrate trauma-informed practice into the design process for designers, researchers, and organizations. While I don’t have ALL the answers, there are many things I’ve learned through professional psychotherapy training and hundreds of hours of clinical experience and supervision. I realized I have so much to share with the majority of designers and researchers who don’t have this background.

This is why I have presented a talk, “Trauma-Informed Design Research: Creating Safety in User Engagements on Sensitive Topics,” at the #a11yTO Conf—Accessibility Toronto Conference.

👉 You can download the presentation slides here.

Next up: I’m building educational workshops for individuals and organizations to deepen their understanding and enhance processes with a trauma-informed lens.

👉 Learn more at Cocoro Colab.

👉 Join the Waitlist to be notified when the workshop is scheduled.

If you’re a leader or design research practitioner committed to bringing trauma-aware practices into your research or organization and seeking education and consultation, let’s connect.

Follow my LinkedIn page to get updates.

References

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2023). Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs): Preventing early trauma to improve adult health. https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/aces/index.html

Center for Health Care Strategies. (n.d.). Trauma-informed care. https://www.chcs.org/topics/trauma-informed-care/

Design Council. (n.d.). Tackling issues surrounding the housing of vulnerable adults. https://www.designcouncil.org.uk/our-resources/archive/reports-resources/tackling-issues-surrounding-housing-vulnerable-adults/

National Child Traumatic Stress Network. (n.d.). Trauma-informed care. https://www.nctsn.org/trauma-informed-care

Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. (2014). SAMHSA’s concept of trauma and guidance for a trauma-informed approach. https://ncsacw.acf.hhs.gov/userfiles/files/SAMHSA_Trauma.pdf

Why we need Trauma-Informed Design: a psychotherapist and designer’s perspective