296 - The Power of Trauma Awareness in Design and Facilitation with Rachael Dietkus

What does it take to make workshops work? And how can we facilitate collaboration that sticks and leads to results? My name is Miriam Hapnes, and with the Workshops Work podcast, I'm on the mission to find the magic ingredients that make workshops work. Today with me on the show is Rachel Dekas, and we speak about trauma-informed facilitation and research design work. And Rachel shares how her background in social work has informed her work in approaching the difficult topics when doing design research with more care and authenticity. So stay tuned. And by the way, if you don't have pen and paper at hand to take your own notes, scroll down to the show notes to download my free one-page summary. And now enjoy. Rachel.

Hi, Myriam.

Welcome to the show.

Thank you for having me.

Thank you for joining me. You've been warmly recommended by previous guests to talk about trauma-informed facilitation, and I'm very curious because I'm definitely under-informed on this topic. So yeah.

I have a feeling that you are probably far more informed than you might realize, so I think this will hopefully come up in the conversation we have.

Maybe a positive surprise. And before we get there, I always start with the same question: when did you start calling yourself a facilitator? And actually, do you?

It's, um, this is such a good question. It was— I was, I was thinking on this over the weekend and really trying to think back to, well, when was the first time that I remember either being called a facilitator And/or identifying as a facilitator. And so I had to think beyond, you know, full-time work capacities. And it took me back to being in college. So as an undergraduate, and I was very involved with this student group called Alternative Spring Break. And one of the things that we did was there would be— at the time, there were probably I'd say 15 or so different trips that 10 to 12 students would take for each of these different trips around different parts of the United States. And you had to apply and you had to be selected. And ultimately on the back end, the people who were organizers with Alternative Spring Break were trying to find a good group of people who were were either interested in a particular theme or topic for the trip that they were going on, and/or really just trying to find this, this balance of people who would be participating. So you often didn't know the other people who were going to be— that you're going to be spending spring break with. And the first time that I ever applied, I also applied to be a co-facilitator, and I really can't think of a more explicit time where there was just this mention of facilitation or co-facilitation. And so it was as part of that experience. And I wish I— as I was thinking about this over the weekend, I was wishing that I still had access to those responses. But I remember some of those types of things that I had talked about. And so one of the things that they wanted that they wanted co-facilitators. There were 2 facilitators for each trip. So it wasn't just one person who was overseeing and guiding the group. It was 2 people who were expected to meet on some type of a regular cadence. And then also, you met every single week as your entire group that was going to be traveling to your trip. And you did this for several weeks. So you did this for— if I'm remembering correctly, We would start in mid to late December, and then we would meet weekly up until the trip, which typically happened in, you know, mid, mid-March. And I just remember the person who I was a co-facilitator with. I'm not still in touch with him. I'm actually really curious, like, like where he is and what he's doing. But his name was Dave Pole, and he was also a very— he was a student activist like I was at that time. And so we knew of each other, but we didn't know each other super well. But we could not have complemented each other any more or any better. And part of what we did as co-facilitators was to, you know, kind of roughly set a bit of an agenda. What were some of the things that we wanted to talk about week to week, especially in preparation for this, this team of 10 or 12 of us spending essentially a week together. And then traveling together. So, you know, you would talk about things like, you know, how do you handle conflict if conflict comes up? What if the group wants to split and one, one group, one, one smaller part of the group wants to do a certain kind of like service or volunteer activity, and the other group wants to do something different? Like, how, just how do you manage and how do you navigate? And also, how do you facilitate these types of conversations. But I also— something else that I also remember is that we always met on Sundays. And so it was— I don't recall meeting during the actual work week or school week. We always met on Sunday, sort of like late afternoon, early evening. And there's something special about that, the timing of the day for that kind of facilitation and co-facilitation. So the academic week, if you will, was already done. You know, Saturday, like Friday night, like activities. If there are things that people are doing, you kind of have that under your belt. Saturday is maybe like a rest day. Sunday is a bit of a rest day, getting caught up and preparing for the week. And there was, there was just something about the timing of when we decided to meet. You know, obviously it— I'm sure it came down to schedules and availability, and when people, when everyone could come together. And it was the time that had the least amount of conflict, um, in terms of scheduling and whatnot. But we, uh, yeah, it was, it was just such a— it really shaped some of the, those experiences of when I think about facilitation, even co-facilitation nowadays. And so for one of my most explicit early on ways of even identifying and relating to and actively doing facilitation, was in this co-arena. So I had someone with me to like learn with me and to, and to navigate that space in a way that, uh, that I think we often typically like underestimate, like having a collaborator and having a partner with us while, while doing this.

Yeah, who complements us, as you said, in terms of energy and what they see, what they don't see. And it sounds as if It was something that came rather natural or intuitive to you without a proper training and anticipating what the group might need and how much structure versus freedom or emergent flexibility you could offer them.

Yeah, you know, I, I'm sure we had some type of training, and— but I, but I don't remember it, to be quite honest. You know, so either it was so good that it was just, it was just so deeply naturally integrated, or it was nonexistent. You know, I mean, I think the way that ASB, which is what we often called it, was structured, it was, it was one of the most structured and well-organized student groups on campus at that time. It was really an honor to be selected to be someone who got to go on one of these trips. It was definitely an honor to be a co-facilitator. Co-facilitators often, depending on where you were in your undergraduate journey. If you just enjoyed the experience and if people really resonated with your experience, you were often encouraged to be part of the leadership team in a following year. So there was— I feel like there was definitely a guiding and a coaching that was— I think it was intentionally meant to be informal. And it was so semi-structured. Because the group of people— I mean, almost everyone has gone on to be in some type of a leadership role in some organization that is working on either social justice issues or social impact issues. I mean, it just sort of drew that kind of person who deeply cared about the Earth and other people and just various causes. But I like how you mentioned the word anticipation. I mean, there was something that we were encouraged to do, which was just to be who we were and to also accept people where they were in terms of their newness to this experience. Sometimes people were brand new to a certain topic that was the theme for each one of these trips as well. And so sometimes we would have this explicit learning. And so we might be reading something and then talking about it. Or we were just talking— we would talk about the things that maybe we were nervous about, like where we were maybe going to be staying or— the neighborhoods where we might be doing some service work, just getting to know one another. So sometimes you may have people who cared really deeply about an explicit topic or issue, but maybe they had very, like, differing viewpoints on other issues that you may have also cared about. And so I think there was just this natural flow to all of it. You know, I'm sure we had— I'm sure there were some moments of discord, but I just, I remember that experience so, so fondly. And It truly being one that was this explicit facilitation, like, role and facilitator role, and the one that you really shared with, with someone else.

Yeah. And how has this experience influenced or informed the work that you're doing nowadays?

Yeah, you know, it's— I, in some ways, I feel like I've been coming, I've been coming a bit full circle into wanting to re-embrace some of those aspects of having a partner and/or a collaborator while, while doing something. And so sometimes that could look like, you know, thought partnership. So, you know, really having this peer-to-peer accountability, talking with peers and colleagues, many who are also friends, and, and talking, talking with them about ideas and maybe ways to structure something, or phrasing of how to maybe deliver something. I do at this point, I do quite a bit of solo facilitation and, and like solo leading of things. At least that's what it looks like on, you know, to someone who might be attending something. But really, ultimately, behind the scenes, there are quite a few people who I feel like are maybe informal and constant co-facilitators, you know, of, of these different topics, of these different things that, you know, that both I care about, but others care about as well. So one thing that I've been doing, I do this, I try to do this pretty consistently at this point. But when I'm, when I know that I'm talking about, you know, trauma-informed design or trauma-informed facilitation, either doing workshops or webinars, you know, various talks on this, on this particular topic. If there is time, I really try to model what it both looks like and feels like to share who are these other people that, that I have both learned with or that I've learned from either presently and/or over the years. And I feel like that is maybe that's an informal way of celebrating these different aspects of facilitation. You know, when I, when I even just look at this, this list of people, um, they all present in different ways. They all have very different styles. Um, some have some similarities that overlap, but for the most part, People are coming to also this broader general work around design in a way that is very normal and natural for them. And I feel like celebrating that and acknowledging that as part of my facilitation is really— is just one, it's— I think it's important to acknowledge that. But 2, I think it's also important to model what that looks like, you know, to make sure that we're talking about these other people that we are learning with and from.

I love that. So recognizing that we're all standing on the shoulders of giants.

1,000%. 1,000%.

Yeah. And I totally agree that we're all different in how we deliver our work and how we design. And I think it's so important to also acknowledge and appreciate this difference because this is what— if we don't bring in our authenticity, we cannot encourage the authenticity in the groups we host, if we try to copy someone or to be someone else, I have the impression that the participants, the individuals in the groups, will feel that and have the impression that they also have to behave in a certain way. And suddenly there's this stiffness.

Yeah, I think that there's, um, you know, I know that I have both seen that in others and seen that it's interesting to pay attention to how does that play out, like what does that look like. I think there's one way of facilitating something that can feel Almost a bit off-putting to me. And it's almost when someone is— they're so polished and they're so prepared that it leads them to a certain level of rigidity.

Mm-hmm.

And so if things get off track or if things get a little off script, I can pick up on where their nervousness might start to creep in because it's maybe we're now— we're a few minutes behind. Or now we didn't get to something, so you have to start rushing through content. I think because of having so much additional practice with either facilitation, just talking throughout the brux of the pandemic, I got over time, I became more and more comfortable with really pivoting on the spot. You know, sometimes it can, that can feel a little clunky, that can make us feel a little bit nervous. It definitely has. I've had, definitely have had my, my moments where it just makes me feel quite nervous. But I also really have started being much more intentional on sharing whether I'm in person or whether this is a virtual engagement of sharing like, what is the general flow for the time that we have together? And so if we have 60 minutes, or if we have 75 minutes, or if we have 2 hours, These are the things that I am planning on us getting to. And these might be some additional things that I hope we can get to. But if we don't, that's OK. So it's almost like giving this permission before you even need to even ask for it, that we may not get to everything today. Or this particular area of trauma-informed, really kind of anything, is so huge. And you could spend— hours upon hours talking about it and still feel like you're only barely scratching the surface. And so, yeah, I almost— I, you know, as I'm, as I'm like, as I'm thinking on this and reflecting on it and answering at the same time, I'm, I'm realizing that there are probably many of these little like tokens of permission that I've given myself that I may not have always done. So I'm, I'm certain I did not do this like 20 years ago. Like, I would have been much more stick to the script, make sure I don't veer off course too much. And for what reason? Like, why does it really matter in the end?

And I think it's interesting what I— what came to my mind as I heard you speaking is the distinction between focus on us and the content, focus on the group. So I think if we're too polished and only focus on we need to deliver what we planned, It's as if it's all about us and our plan, whereas when we focus on the group and what they need, if they have more questions about a certain piece of content, yes, of course we want to spend more time there and don't want to rush them through it as if they don't matter.

Yeah, yeah. I, you know, there are 2 engagements that are coming to mind. One was with a college called Miriam College, and Ironically, similar name as you, and they're based in the Philippines. And there was a program, a social work program that had reached out to me, and they said that we, we would love for you to talk about design in this context of social work. This is maybe at this point, this was easily 2, 3 years ago. So virtual engagement, you know, they're in one time zone. I'm clearly in another time zone here in the US. And because of the, because of the timing of it, you know, I told them, I said, you know, I'd be happy to talk for, you know, anywhere from 30 to 40 minutes. And if we— I said, and I, I would love to have as much opportunity for, for just open Q&A. So if we have— I said, I, I'm happy to stick around for as long as possible. And it got to a point where I believe we started at either— it was maybe like 6 or 6:00 or 6:30 my time. So I'm in Central Time Zone in Illinois, which, you know, that's early evening. That isn't terribly late. And so I talked, I presented some slides. There was, you know, already just like robust activity in the chat. So I had a sense of there were probably gonna be some really good questions and lots of good conversation. And we easily went till I think I started— I think I started to cut us off at around 9:00 or 9:30. So went far longer than I could have ever— that I really anticipated. I thought like, oh, we might run over by 45 minutes or maybe an hour at the tops. And they just kept having like one great rich question after another. And it was this— I feel like some of it was in reaction to slides and things that I had presented and things that I was talking about. But I think it was also there was just this deep curiosity for, which is why they had invited me, to want to think about this intersection of these 2 different disciplines and professions. And so I mean, I probably could have kept going if I didn't have to go to sleep or tuck my daughter in that night before school the next day. So that's one where I feel like if you just allow some of that to just unfold naturally, it almost becomes this It really does mimic this co-facilitation. So what they were asking and contributing, it wasn't just like they would ask a question and I would respond. I would share some thoughts, or sometimes I would pause and I would want to gather my thoughts. But I would invite others to also contribute to that conversation. So again, just really trying to— for me, maybe some of this comes from this nervousness of being called an expert and also wanting at the same time to embrace—

Yeah.

that others know things about this topic as well. And even if they don't explicitly know something about this topic, I'm sure that they have opinions, and I'm sure that they have things that they may also want to contribute as part of that, or to help all of us just sort of like stretch our ideas and our thoughts in these different directions. So it's, you know, again, like, I don't know if we would have— I don't know if we would characterize it as this co-facilitation, but that ultimately that is what it felt like to me. It felt like a deeply, like, you know, like we were all co-facilitating the conversation in this very rich way, um, that, that we did not plan, that we did not anticipate either.

And I thank you for sharing this experience. And for me, what really comes out is the clear difference between, just from a mindset and attitude, between a trainer and a co— and a facilitator, where the trainer delivers the slides. Okay, there are a few Q&As, That's it. And the facilitator, as you say, we co-facilitate in this conversation. You don't want to be seen as the expert, although you definitely have the subject matter expertise. But then it becomes almost like a dance where you co-create something with a group.

Yeah, you know, I am thinking about, you know, thinking about something that a friend and colleague, Lisa Mercer, once shared with me. And this is, this is when I was, I was working on my MFA. So this is, you know, a handful of years ago. And she, you know, dear friend and colleague, but also my advisor for the work that I was doing, the academic research that I was doing. And one of the things that is just big within the academic world is this creation of new knowledge. And so, like, what is this new knowledge that is being created because you were doing, you know, research on any particular issue? And I just, I remember, I remember being both equal parts excited about that phrasing and also, I'll just say, a bit anxious about that because something like the study of trauma is not new. There are new things that I think are constantly emerging and there are new things that we as a collective are understanding. But I had some hesitation with putting this label of new knowledge on something that has been studied and and examined for centuries. I mean, absolutely for centuries. And so when I have had these longer engagements, so something that might be identified or labeled as a workshop, but it's definitely more than an hour. So something that's at least 2 hours, often like 3 or 4 hours. One of the other things that I typically say on the front end is that— is this phrasing around, like, we'll use my knowledge and we will use your knowledge. because I feel like people are, you know, we all bring what we know up until that given point in time to these experiences. So whether it's attending a conference, going to a workshop, maybe facilitating or co-facilitating, you know, the different things are going to be influencing how we might be showing up and contributing to that particular, like, moment in time. And so I really feel like that, that I mean, I genuinely mean that when I say that. And I also, I can feel both in myself and even within the virtual space, this bit of, it's almost like this nervousness like goes down dramatically, you know. So there can be this pressure to learn a lot or to learn as much as possible about trauma-informed design in this, in as short of amount as possible. And I feel like if we can set this stage that this is one of many opportunities where you may be learning about this topic and learning about this subject, and there are things that I'm going to learn that are going to be new just because we are participating in this engagement together. And what might that look like in the moment? And what might that inform in the future for the next conversation that might be had? And what might that look like for others as well? Um, yeah, I'm thinking, God, I'm thinking, I'm— there's so many things that are, that are coming to mind that I have a feeling that we might talk about.

Yeah, and I would love to, for those who are maybe not familiar, or to at least get everyone on the same page, what do you speak about when you speak about trauma-informed facilitation or trauma-informed design?

Yeah, you know, I, I think one of the, the There are a number of things, you know. So for, for quite some time, it really focused on the research process and in the design research process. So, you know, one simple way of talking about this is researchers, design researchers who are working on a particular challenge or issue or issue area, and they are hoping to improve something. or maybe build something new or write something new. So it doesn't always have to be a tangible product. It could be a service. It could be a policy. It could be an experience. So it's very, very wide open, broad landscape when it comes to design and design research. And one of the things that has come up over in more recent years especially, but it has been a topic of conversation for I would say a number of years at this point, is that the design research process can feel very transactional. So it can feel like, you know, like, let's say I'm, I'm in the design researcher, like, seat, and I'm asking you a question, and I'm only wanting to get the best and most intriguing possible, like, answers, and wanting to use what you say To really inform whatever this thing is that I might be like working on. So again, could be experience, could be a service, could be a product, could be policy, any number of things. And I think that this transactional way of this exchange of like asking a question, getting a response, can feel overly formulaic. It can lack a lot of like personal connection. And as a result, it can feel very extractive. So like, I'm only here for this allotted amount of time. I have a certain amount of questions that I need to get through. And I may find myself at times like rushing you because maybe you're not answering the question or you're not giving me the response that I really want, whatever that response might be. So I'm sort of giving a, probably a, maybe an unfair and semi-crude characterization of design research. But it often does have this very like transactional way of being. And so, you know, for me, as I, as I became more and more involved in design through a lot of my work as a social worker, I, I would just— I was, I was really noticing this distinction between social work practice feeling much more relational and design research as, I would say, a parallel practice has a lot of overlap and similarities with social work practice. But design research feeling very transactional. So almost like we— like, you know what the agenda is. You're hoping that people are going to say certain things. You don't necessarily have it fully anticipated, but you're hoping that people are going to hit on certain things. So it's almost like confirming the bias that you might have. And so I really just started noticing this very distinct way of how social workers show up in their work and how it does have some similarities with design research. And what might that look like if a social worker was doing design research? Like, would it be just as transactional, or would it be much more relational? And I think once you— like, so that feels like part 1, or almost like phase 1. And then another, like, layer of that is, as you were having much more of a relational interaction and exchange with others, hopefully they start to feel a bit of ease. They feel Maybe less nervous. They feel assured that this isn't an extractive or a manipulative type of exchange or conversation, that there's this opportunity for, like, I think, true and authentic rapport to be built. And again, this is like— this means something slightly different to me as both a social worker and as a designer, as opposed to someone who maybe has been either trained or is just practicing as a designer. So I'm really a huge proponent of having that time and that spaciousness to allow those things to naturally occur and to naturally evolve.

Thank you. And now I wonder where the difference is between bringing more empathy to a process as opposed to the trauma-informed.

Yeah, you know, the, you know, I think some traditional Perspectives on empathy would be to show up with kindness and curiosity, you know, to, you know, there's sometimes there's this phrasing of, you know, walking in other people's shoes. And when I would hear some of these definitions that are certainly overused in, in a number of design contexts, they made me quite uncomfortable because again, like as a social worker first, or as a social worker Primarily, I don't know what it's like to walk in someone else's shoes if I have not had that shared experience or if I haven't had my own version of that experience. And so I often lean a bit more towards compassion because compassion is— it involves, it includes empathy, but it also includes this aspect of doing something. And so that doing something could be Any number of things. It could be actually taking action. It could be using that exchange to really inform something that really, like, does move the needle on a particular topic or an issue. Or it could just be like the, the doing something is being much more relational again, like being far more relational as opposed to transactional. And I think where the, where the trauma-informed piece comes into play You know, it can mean, it can mean a number of things, and it does mean a lot of different things to different people. For me, being trauma-informed is having this sensitivity and having this awareness that almost everyone, if not everyone, has experienced some type of hardship, overwhelm, stress, traumatic experience at least once in their life. I mean, so statistically, You know, there are some, there are some statistics that date back to 2014 that are often, you know, cited and recited both in the US but also around the world. And that, that stat from 2014 says that 70% of adults have experienced at least one traumatic event at some point in their lives. And so, you know, the time that we're having this conversation, it's, you know, we're getting closer to like late 2024. That's a statistic that is I'm certain, I am absolutely certain it is far higher than 70%. And it's— and it includes like a whole range of different types of experiences that could be overwhelming or could be maybe labeled as like traumatic. But I think taking this trauma-informed approach is really practicing with this, both this pause and this caution and this awareness. that people may have experienced something that is deeply, deeply upsetting. And so it could be both in just regular everyday life, or it could be related to a particular topic that we might be doing design research on. So an example would be, I think about some of the projects that I've worked on, you know, almost every single one has been a fairly like heavy It's definitely been a sensitive and serious, complex type of issue. So considering things like trying to better understand the mechanisms of racism in the child welfare system, you know, trying to better understand the explicit ways that racism is showing up in healthcare, coming up with a plan to respond to mass gun violence. So rarely anything that I've worked on has been something like super light, or I would even say like upbeat. There's almost like an inherent heaviness to a lot of the work that I often find myself doing. And so with that, if I'm working on a topic where there is either a 100% certainty, near certainty, or very, very high likelihood that people have experienced the thing that we are actually trying to better understand. I feel like it is just part of my responsibility and my ethics as a designer, as a social worker, as a practitioner, as a facilitator of that conversation to have a sensitivity and awareness that I should be showing up in maybe either a slightly different way or a dramatically different way. because of that awareness, because of that sensitivity.

So if I understand correctly, it's the acknowledgement of the pain that participants are bringing into the room and then responding to it. Maybe we cannot respond to it with empathy because we haven't walked in their shoes, and still we have to adjust and Yeah, to what's happening. And now I can see how your background as a social worker comes in, because every work that you do is by definition with those who are affected and who have been traumatized.

Mm-hmm.

And now with the, um, statistics that you cited, I understand that the practice that social workers do by definition, by training, has to be incorporated in some way or another by any facilitator assuming that at least 70%, 7 out of 10 in the groups that we facilitate will have had experienced trauma?

Yeah, I mean, you know, this, this word acknowledgement, I think, is a, is a really, really big one. So I think the— I think there is also this— I think there is this acknowledgement of pain, and, and as well there is this acknowledgement of of just the experience. And, you know, I don't necessarily need to know the details of that experience that may not come up explicitly in conversation. It could, but it might not. In fact, there are a number of practitioners that, myself included, like that, that discourage from asking people explicitly, especially in these design research contexts, like asking people explicitly about what was so horrible about an experience. I think there are other ways to be in conversation with people to allow them to, like, share their story in a way that is— that gives them agency, that gives them this, this voice and this choice of how much do they want to disclose. Because the reality is that design research is not, is not a therapy session. It isn't always private. You know, we, we talk about how we We'll anonymize things. We allow people to change their consent, so they may change their mind, and someone may have shared something, and then maybe a handful of days later, or even a week later, or even a month later, like decide that they don't want to be contributing to this body of work, or they don't want what they shared to be utilized in a way that, that they, for whatever reason, that they have like, you know, changed their mind on.

Um, giving agency on how much they want to disclose and not to, to dig too deep as a facilitator.

Yeah.

And we're talking about focus group interviews, I assume, in a service design process.

Yeah, I mean, some of it, some of it could be a, a small group of people who are coming together. It could also be typically in a lot of the, a lot of the types of projects that I've done and the research sessions, they have typically been a small team. So it could be someone who's leading that research, someone who's note-taking, and then usually it's just one individual. But a practice that you're making me think of, especially for some of these projects, these themes of projects that I've talked about, have been a probably less common trauma-informed practice, which is inviting someone to participate in this experience, in this research experience, in this exchange, But also allowing them, inviting them actually to bring someone that they want to that session. So, you know, I've— I feel like the— that offering really can just ease and calm people's nerves if they have a sense that they don't have to be— well, one, that they aren't outnumbered, so they don't have like 2 people. And even though these are typically— these are friendly exchanges, it can still feel It can still be nervous and it can still be like anxiety-ridden to know that you are a single person who is maybe sharing things that might be deeply personal or might be very vulnerable.

Yeah. And I wonder how you strike the balance between— now I better understand what you mentioned in the beginning, the transactional nature. So you do, do not want to retraumatize them.

Mm-hmm.

And still there's a specific topic that you want to talk about. So how not to kind of dance tiptoe around the topic, to be too careful and still not being too upfront or retraumatizing or maybe even stigmatizing, because I, I can imagine So everyone's trauma is deeply personal and it's very different. And the racism that one— or domestic violence that one person has experienced is very different from the other one. How do you create the space where everyone can share their personal view on it without becoming a therapy session and without re-traumatizing?

Yeah, there's— I think there are a few things coming to mind. One is that Design research can feel, and often does feel, deeply therapeutic. And so there is a distinction between, I think, creating a space, having an engagement, even facilitating a conversation that can feel healing. It can feel quite powerful. It can be and feel caring, and also, you know, therapeutic, where, where things can maybe really start to blur that line between something that may or really should be therapy, as opposed to being a deeply therapeutic type of exchange, is, is in how you set up that, that exchange. So, I mean, I'm thinking about so many of these parallels between facilitation and co-facilitation, and even like setting up Like a really good, healthy, responsible, and ethical research session. And I think one thing that really comes to mind in terms of, well, how can we mitigate and/or lower the likelihood of retraumatizing or stigmatizing someone in one of these exchanges? There's a certain amount that we as practitioners that we can do to prepare ourselves to try to not fall into those traps. And sometimes this comes through devising a research plan that really explicitly states, this is how we are going to approach this. These are the types of things that we are trying to better understand. These are some of the questions that we are hoping to ask. And then becoming much more explicit in some of that when it comes to your interview guide. And So I often see like a research plan that is separate from the initial like scoping of a project, and then having that research plan really guide and inform the interview guide. Now, I think the interview guide is where sometimes where I've seen designers and researchers start to really try to be like overly prescriptive because they're very cautious of not wanting to retraumatize individuals, which I feel like is very That is quite noble. But sometimes we just cannot even— we can't anticipate every possible thing that might happen, just like we can't anticipate every possible thing that might happen in a workshop or in anything that we are facilitating. You know, again, like, you know, I can have all these things, like, you know, very explicitly and concretely planned, but if it starts to lead astray a little bit, how do I either regain composure? How do I bring people back in? It's all very, very true for a design research exchange and a design research session. But one of the things that I think is a very good practice is to share some of the questions that we're going to ask people, like, in advance. So different people have different ways of approaching this, and there, and there are many schools of thought. So, you know, one school of thought is don't share anything with people in advance because you want that element of surprise, and you want to get people in their most authentic, unscripted, like, what do they say, like, in that moment, kind of like gut, you know, intuitive, like, response. And, you know, I feel like there's a— there's maybe a time and place for that. I think when it comes to definitely much more of this sensitive and serious, complex subject matter research, I don't think that is the time and place to have these elements of surprise or to Pretend like that you're going to try to catch someone in the moment. I think those are the moments when we can actually really both prepare ourselves and do our best to prepare others about what are the things that we might be talking about. So I've seen this done in some really, really beautiful ways with different research teams that I've worked with. And it can happen in a series of different types of exchanges. So One way is that it could be, you know, as people are being invited into this process, or they might be like, you know, responding to a call to be invited. So people might fill out like a questionnaire or like a screener before they maybe are interviewed. And then with that screener, there might be an opportunity to share like a little bit of information about the study and why are we trying to better understand this thing and what are we hoping to do. So there are these moments where you can have this exchange or this sharing of information while also giving people a better sense on the context of what it is that you'll be doing. And I think the specifics around that context. So if we were to say, we will be having a conversation about this explicit topic. These are some of the questions that I am hoping to ask. I invite you to share other things that you may want to talk about, or are there other questions that you maybe— that you think I should be asking? So again, like these moments, like multiple moments for someone to say like, no, I don't want to talk about that, or like, yes, we can maybe talk about this, or like, oh, you know, I see that you have like 4 or 5 questions that you shared here, but here are maybe like 2 others that I would maybe consider. consider adding to your list. So there's a bit of this co-creation, sort of like co-production of what maybe is going to be asked, what's going to be discussed. There's also this element of time that is adding some spaciousness to and before that exchange. So something that I've noticed about myself is that I probably have always been this way, but I think I was much more dismissive of it when I was in my 20s and 30s. And now that I'm I'm closer to 50 at this point. I'm almost 50. I just think about these elements of anticipation. What are the things that I want to know and that I feel that I need to know before I might do something? So I have just a growing sensitivity to that. And so I don't want to project my sensitivities onto others, but I suspect other people probably like to know a sense of The context, the length of time that we might be talking. What are some of the things that I might be asking? What are the ways that I can convey that either through email, through a conversation, maybe a short video conversation before we actually have the explicit like interview session? Now, I don't do this kind of like extreme level of preparation in every single context. And I think that's where another element of trauma-informed practices really come into play. It's like Being mindful and aware enough of the particular topic that we might be either discussing or talking about, or that I might be researching, or that the team might be researching. What's the context? What's the urgency that we have with this? You know, sometimes there is real urgency to trying to better understand something. More often than not, especially in design research, there's a lot of false urgency that is like just that fuels this process. And so I think about these different courtesies, if you will. It's almost like, what could I do to both feel prepared and also prepare the other person or the other people who are going to be part of this? I think a very simple parallel to this is like when you attend a conference and before you register, you want to know who's speaking. And you want to see not just who's speaking, but what are they speaking on. And then you want to read the description on what it is that they're speaking about. So then it gives you this sense of what to expect. What might it look like? Is this person talking for 30 minutes about some really big, complex topic? Or are they talking for 90 minutes? So for me, those are all things— those are all data points that help inform, I think, these elements of ease in that exchange.

Yeah. Absolutely. And I just wonder, there also, how can we be more adjusted to different personality types, preferences, and also neurodiversity, given that some individuals do need more information and structure in order to relax their nervous system?

Mm-hmm.

Whereas others are happy to be surprised in the moment. But what I hear from you is that we also anticipate, or we think for the maybe the most vulnerable member in the group that we'll be meeting, and how can we accommodate or make it easier for them to feel safe in this context to then speak about their trauma.

Yeah, and I think, I think so much of that comes in the preparation.

Mm-hmm.

Now, how are we both preparing ourselves for the expected and the unexpected? And then how are we preparing others? And again, in a way that is responsible, that is thoughtful, and that I feel is also ethical. You know, I am very cautious and mindful of what is sometimes characterized as like really being extractive in design research. I mean, the, the exchange by design can often feel like, again, it can feel like a transaction. It can feel like I'm going to get the most exciting and intriguing and juiciest parts of your story, and then I'm going to take that and I'm going to run with it. I mean, that kind of an exchange does not feel good for me. So I don't want to mask that from being really the reality. If I can choose the way that we are doing the work, and if I can choose on how we are preparing, how we are treating both ourselves and others during that exchange, how we are telling someone's story after the fact. And in an ideal way of doing design research, if that can be as participatory and as centered on co-creation and co-producing that as possible, like that is That's the dream. I feel like that is often like the dream that people are really aspiring to, but it's much harder to get that to happen because I think because we aren't given realistic amounts of time to do this work in a way that really can be as thoughtful as it should be and as responsible as it absolutely needs to be. You know, that's so many ways of doing this work, just like there's so many ways of like— You know, facilitating too.

Yeah. And since you're speaking about facilitation, where would the— so where you now spoke about the trauma-informed design part, what distinguishes trauma-informed facilitation from non-trauma-informed facilitation? So what are the— what do we need to keep in mind to really have it? Because I have the impression that many speak about trauma-informed facilitation nowadays, and I wonder what that really means and how much is just a new way of speaking and what is actually the core and why is it important.

Yeah, I, you know, I think, I think one of the best ways to share some thoughts on that question, uh, really come from this, this conference that I attended last week, and it was called, uh, Design for the Public, and was organized by someone who works within the federal government here in the US, uh, and, and a small team of others who were deeply involved with the planning and the, the, the curation and, and as well as the facilitation of, of the 2 days. When I think about these explicit, like, what are some explicit ways of, of doing or conducting trauma-informed facilitation? I, I think some of it is also very similar to a lot of the things that, that we've already talked about related to design research. But when I think about my participation last week, so I was both an attendee, and then I also, I did the, the closing workshop of the 2 days. And because of this, this play on words of design for the public, I called my workshop, I called it Care for the Public. And so what does it really look like to talk about trauma-informed design? What do we mean when there's a growing number of us who have been talking about coming up with your own scope of practice? Like, what does it mean to have a trauma-informed scope of practice, especially in this context of design? And there's so many things that can influence what trauma-informed facilitation might look like. So there are a few things that I— there really, there was very little that I knew in advance. So I mean, I knew the spaces that we were going to be in, but I didn't know if we were going to be sitting in chairs that were, that were static. I didn't know if they were chairs that were on wheels. I didn't know if we would have desks. Like, would people have like an ability to like have something that they are able to write on or type in a laptop?

Yeah.

So there, there are a lot of different things that, that I think about that might inform the style of how I might have people do something or how the types of activities that I might have them do. And so when you don't know those types of things, so again, you can probably tell by how I'm both responding to this and how I respond to other things, like I'm definitely a need knower. I'm one of those people like I, I need to know as much detail as possible. I both need to know and I also want to know. So some of it is for like preparation purposes, but also some of it is also to like wrap my head around some possible scenarios of how things might unfold throughout a session. But I knew that I was going to be doing some level of presenting slides, talking through some of those slides. The particular way that I wanted to structure this was for there to be a lot of mini moments of self-reflection. So knowing that, thinking about this is coming at the end of 2 days, this has been a fantastic conference. There are roughly 90 to 100 of us who are there, a lot of individual conversations. So there was high energy, but people were also starting to get a little bit tired just naturally from From being at this. So I didn't want to force small group conversation. You know, some people absolutely love that. I am one of those people where sometimes I really love the small group conversation, and then other times I'm just not in the mood for it. You know, for whatever reason, I'm just not in the mood for it.

Mm-hmm.

And so I wanted there to be these moments of self-reflection. So people are doing this as a group. So as a collective, we're all there together in the room. But the questions that I gave people, like, throughout this time was really a moment for them to either just think quietly, or they could write something down, or they could type something out. So depending on what type of a device they wanted to primarily utilize. And so for me, it also, as a really, like, I feel like I was more than just a speaker. I was like facilitating this experience for both myself and for everyone else who was there. It also gave me these built-in moments to just sort of like pause myself. You know, I wasn't writing something down and I wasn't typing something out because I was standing in the front of the room and I was mindful of like moving us through slides and keeping the conversation going, keeping this exchange going. But it gave me these moments of pause throughout, which I don't know if we always give ourselves those moments when we are facilitating something. You know, like maybe we get a little bit of that if we put people into small groups and people are having their conversations and then we bring everyone back. For me, I really wanted to both see and feel what it felt like to kind of like witness us all doing this together and doing this together in person. And it felt really, really powerful. Like I could tell when some people wanted to write something down and I could tell when sometimes Those same people wanted to just appreciate the moment and just think on it. Maybe they didn't have something explicitly that they had to or wanted to or even needed to write down. So just sort of being very, very present in that moment was very, very important to me. I also just giving people options. So options of how you wanted to show up. So there wasn't an assignment or even a series of assignments where they had to Do something and then turn it in, you know, like it was— I very much wanted people to be, again, to be at ease, to be in a reflective state, because here we were, we just spent 2 days like learning and doing and talking about so many different things related to design and public service and, you know, civic tech and civic design. And so what is it like to really be part of a larger experience and facilitate a part of an experience as part of a larger experience where there's an opportunity to just have a bit of an off-ramp from that experience as well. And so it's, um, yeah, I was just— I really tried to be mindful of all of these different ways that I think reflection could be centered. There could be some explicit things that people may also learn, but then also like model, really model what is it like to start learning about a topic like this, because some people may not have ever heard about trauma-informed design. There were some in the room who have been actively practicing in this way for a number of years, which is— that's also exciting to see what new things or new ways of practicing and facilitating really resonates with folks. And a lot of people came up afterwards just wanting to share different things or ask different questions. There was one person in particular that felt her response just felt so good, especially like knowing that we were going to be having this, this conversation today, Myriam. But she came up to me and she said, like, I've— she's like, I've heard you speak a number of different times about this topic. And I really love how your practice is shifting and is changing and that there are different things that you're focusing on and that you're deepening in that way. It was such a genuine and heartfelt testament that our own styles, our own way of doing this work can shift, can adapt depending on what it is that we're doing.

I would love to hear an example of what did you do differently or what are you doing differently now that your practice has been more trauma-informed, as I mentioned?

I mean, one of the things, and this is This might feel like very boring in the grand scheme of things, but I think it's offering a bit of these like bookends. And so like on the, on the front end, it's really sharing a very brief overview of what we will be talking about in that allotted time that we have together. So that's, that's one component. I think another, and because this particular like conversation was really focused on our own individual practices and what does it look like to have either a scope of practice, what are our collection of practices that inform how we practice as design practitioners. It felt important to me to not be overly like lecture-based and just like telling people what they should be doing and like talking at people, but also sharing a bit about myself, which I haven't always done. You know, I haven't always talked about either personal parts of my past. And I'm not talking about traumatic parts of my past. It's just like I haven't always said I'm from the Midwest, or I was born and raised in the Midwest in the US, or that I'm a first-generation college student. But I shared some things that I know are important to me and have been very influential on how and why I practice the way that I do. And I feel like if I can both model but also share these things that are, I think, personal but not deeply personal and not uncomfortable. But if I can share that these are things that have been quite informative on why I do what I do and how I do what I do, then I feel like that both— there's an element of storytelling with that, of course. But there's also— it's a way of showing that it's OK to—

Yeah.

Embrace these parts of us that really have been influential on, like, who we are. Because I do feel like who we are, like, both our upbringing, the things that we have done, the things that maybe we haven't done, the things that we haven't been able to do, definitely influence, like, how and why we practice the way that we do, especially as designers.

Yeah.

And historically, I feel like we've been both trained and discouraged from sharing those parts. But they really are huge in how I practice and why I practice the way that I do. So some of that is just pulling back a little bit of those layers of the onion of being a social worker. I don't always go into this extreme detail, but I share some of these things that are just relevant. So some of it could be also talking about what are the types of projects that I work on? What are the types of organizations that I've worked within over the years. Maybe because I'm truly at this point in midlife where I just— I still have some years ahead of me to be working and doing things and just living in general. But I also have— it can sound really impressive when you say, oh, I've been working for 25 years. I mean, that can sound really impressive. But when you can say that, oh, I've been doing this kind of thing for a certain amount of time, they're just things that, you know, there are things that you've experienced. And, you know, for me at this point in my life, I can definitely see where there's— there has been this very unique, maybe quite nonlinear, but this very unique steady thread throughout all those experiences. And so I think just showing a— I think, um, maybe a responsible and I would say both careful but also like filled with care, like level of like vulnerability of like talking about myself. You know, social workers are— we are trained to not talk about ourselves. Designers are often like discouraged from centering themselves as part of their work.

Bias?

I think because of the bias, yeah, you know, and I, and you know, I don't, I don't necessarily, um, disagree with that, but I do think we need to understand ourselves better, and I think showing a curiosity in ourselves is And I think also if it's a mechanism to build trust, if we are sharing our own humanity and pieces of our background, then the other person will recognize us as a human, as a—

and then I assume be more open to share about their own experience.

Yeah, and I think the key thing is doing this in a way that is genuine, that is thoughtful, and again, that is definitely responsible. I've seen many irresponsible ways of doing that or having this sort of quick and pressured exchange only to try to get someone else to share deep vulnerabilities. That is not at all what I'm advocating for.

It's like—

Yeah, it's like, what can that look like in a way that feels natural, that feels Normal, that you aren't embarrassed by later, or that you don't second-guess later. It's like this is just who you genuinely are. And what does it both look and feel like to have these moments and these exchanges where there is rapport that is being built again, like genuine, authentic rapport? There is trust that is being built. And it's not just like this one-time thing. It's like, how do you sustain that? How do you build that over time? What does it look like to do that in future conversations or in other informal engagements? It doesn't always have to be these formalized things that we are doing professionally that we're being compensated for. It's like, I want my work life to feel fairly seamless with my non-work life.

Mm-hmm.

And I want to be who I am in be that present person in as many of these conversations and arenas as possible. That to me, it's moving beyond this be your true authentic self or bring your authentic self to work. I feel like that is often very much weaponized against people.

Mm-hmm.

But I think there's a way of being aligned with our own integrity that is also making us not feel like we are abandoning ourselves while we are Doing any of the work that we're doing.

Yeah. What remains your number one facilitation challenge?

I think it's a really simple one. I made this reference earlier to small groups and breaking people into small groups to discuss something. I have noticed over the years, I feel like this has been a consistent challenge. I have maybe gotten a little bit better at this or maybe a little less nervous about it, but I really dislike interrupting people to get back on track, if you will, once people have had this moment of being able to talk with others. Because I've noticed— I'm sure you've noticed this too throughout your work— that there might be a little bit of hesitancy or nervousness to like, oh, like either to talk with strangers or just to maybe being asked to talk in a small group when you didn't really anticipate that before. But it often starts off like fairly quietly, and then like it— then everyone is just, you deep in exchange and deep conversation. And you can hear people laughing and talking and then not wanting to stop talking. And I find that interruption— I often find myself thinking, OK, should I just let this be the rest of the thing and just let people keep having their own conversation? Or how do I bring people back to the group to then— Keep us moving or keep us on task or on the agenda. So that, that has— maybe just like saying it out loud will make it not feel like a greater challenge the next time I have to do it. But that is the biggest thing that I'm often really nervous about. Like, I don't want to disrupt other people's flow, especially if they're in a conversation where they look and they sound joyful. It's really, really hard as a facilitator to say, okay, stop. Let's get back to this thing that we need to do or that I want to do, you know. So I guess it's like, it's like taking back that power, taking back that control. I, I struggle with that.

Yeah, especially— I can, I hear you— especially if it's a session where it's about their own exploration and personal growth as opposed to achieving an outcome or coming to a conclusion or building something together.

Yeah.

And as a closing question, I cannot believe that we already talked for almost 1.5 hours. What is it that you would have wished you'd known before when you just got started? What would be your advice to your younger self?

I think definitely the advice to my younger self is that it is okay if things are imperfect. It's okay if things fall off track. It's definitely okay to just go with the flow and to be comfortable with rolling with the discomfort of the unknown. I think if I had had that, that sort of advice or coaching or guidance, I don't know if I would have taken it necessarily, but I definitely would have remembered it and I would have tried to embrace that. But I think I come from just a generation where Much of the facilitation early on was to be very prescriptive, to be very planned, and really to be extremely rigid, which, you know, there are components of that that I think are good, but there are a lot of aspects of that that have probably not served me very well, have probably just made me a more nervous facilitator and second-guess my own, like, natural abilities to just be present and to allow others to do the same.

Yeah. Thank you.

Thank you.

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