Several years ago, I was working with people who had put a lot of effort into creating an inclusive work culture that valued diversity at the table. Our newly installed leadership team came together for a week of in-person strategy and relationship building. While our organization was very much building our plane while flying it, we managed to share agendas before each work session. The initial get-to-know-you icebreaker listed: “Share a favorite place from your childhood and why it is important to you.”
I quickly reached out to the session organizer. “Can we pick a different ice-breaker topic? I’m a childhood abuse survivor. Witnessing the people I’m trying to build professional relationships with reminisce about happy childhood memories while I try not to trauma dump is going to be a challenging experience. Not one I want to have. I’m happy to help come up with a different topic that is more aligned with our work.”
“That’s ok, you can just leave the room while we do the icebreaker”, the organizer replied. My stomach dropped. My face got hot. This was a stark contradiction to the values our organization had established. I struggled to respond. I had been bravely candid, asked for a reasonable accommodation and was met with exclusion. I did the things we told staff to do in challenging situations, but was met with disregard. As I sat out the session next door, I wrestled a growing anxiety and dissociation. Later, I learned that people were told “Gail had an issue with the icebreaker and declined to participate.” It was a painful onboarding onto our new leadership team.
The session planner was not callus or mean—quite the opposite. His intentions were in the right place. But his experience creating inclusive teams didn’t reach beyond the categories and situations in our handbook. We didn’t have guidance for working with trauma survivors or navigating through the myriad other situations humans bring with them to work.
As time went on and we worked to build services for vulnerable populations, the majority of my teammates had empathy for vulnerable people. But they didn’t have functional knowledge of the challenging life experiences we were designing for. The details of life for people low on financial resources and without support systems were met with surprise and well meaning sympathy. What I wanted our team to bring to these scenarios was the same level of skill, curiosity, and analytic thinking as we brought to technology modernization.
By this time, I was about 20 years into my own healing journey. I’d been working with clinicians, and independently studying the field of trauma recovery. I had enough skill to respond in a trauma-informed way when, during an interview, a research participant described her struggles after a workplace sexual assault which led to a period of homelessness. Her story provided important insights to shape the project. It remains the most meaningful interview I’ve done.
After that moment, I wanted my colleagues to know what type of careful to be with trauma survivors, how important it is to include us in research, and the ripples of good that are created when systems work well for us. It took more study, healing, and experience to realize that I can contribute to making the change I want to see in my profession. With guidance from trauma psychologists, I’ve started to create tools and methods for design professionals and user researchers. The goal is to start bridging the distance between trauma-informed care principles and current design practices by introducing new, practical, trauma-informed design and research methods.
In the Haymarket is dedicated to further developing and sharing trauma-informed design and research practices. Come along! Help build a world where vulnerable people are understood and prioritized in the technology we make.
If you want to learn more about trauma-informed design and research, subscribe to this newsletter, and join our upcoming webinar, Introduction to Trauma-Informed Design and Research on November 6.