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Design practice that helps not harms

Trauma is common within society at large and is particularly prevalent amongst vulnerable populations, First Nations peoples and people with Lived Experience of mental health challenges. Trauma informed practice is a strengths-based framework that supports responsiveness to the impact of trauma, enabling physical, psychological, and emotional safety for both providers and survivors.

Jax Wechsler, as part of her human-centred social design practice, often conducts research with people who have lived experience of trauma. She strongly felt that she needed to become more trauma informed in her design practice and completed a Certificate in Trauma Informed Care so that she can conduct her Design Research, Service Design and Co-design practice in a way that helps not harms. Jax is also currently studying neuroscience and embodied transformation as part of her ICF coaching certification. She is interested in the inner work required for change.

Jax has so far delivered Part A of this training to over 200 people from all over the world. Due to popular demand she is offering it again as a 3 part series. It is recommended that you first attend Part A if you plan to attend Part B and/or Part C.

PART A: Trauma Informed Design Research : Process and Practice
12th March at 8:00-10:30am AEST or 11th March 1:00-3:30pm PST

In this class you will learn about the five guiding principles of trauma informed practice; safety, choice, collaboration, trustworthiness and empowerment and learn how to apply them within design research contexts. You will learn some mindsets and practices you can apply within your own practice when working with people who may have experienced trauma. Together we will reflect on how we can make our practice more trauma-informed. You will leave the workshop with a set of principles and practices that will support you to be trauma informed in your design research practice.

PART B: Strength Based Trauma Informed Design Research Methods
14th March at 8:00-10:45am AEST or 13th March 1:00-3:45pm PST

In this class you will learn some research and participatory methods that you can use when conducting research with people who have experienced trauma. These practices, drawn from Asset Based Community Development, Community Engagement, TheoryU, Appreciative Inquiry and Participatory Design will support you to be more strengths based and trauma informed in your Design Research, Service Design and Co-design work, empowering you to help and not harm. You will receive a Methods workbook outlining the methods with links to further resources.

PART C: Vicarious Trauma : Looking After You Wellbeing
19th March at 8:00-10:00 am AEST or 18th March 1:00-3:00pm PST

Vicarious trauma presents a risk for those of us working in trauma associated contexts including with vulnerable communities, indigenous communities and people who have experienced trauma. In this session we will talk about vicarious trauma and together reflect on how we can best care for ourselves and each other when working in trauma related contexts. You will learn some embodiment practices to help you look after your own nervous systems and work on a personal self-care map as to build your personal capacity for trauma stewardship in the work you do.

This training has been delivered to over 400 practitioners globally to groups of individual practitioners as well as to organisational teams.

About Jax Wechsler

Jax Wechsler is a strategic designer, co-design practitioner and change maker based in Sydney Australia. She has 20 years design related experience and is passionate about systems change and enabling better futures for people and the planet. Jax has a Masters by Research in Design (UTS) and her academic research explores the enabling and mediatory roles of design artefacts for organisational transformation. Jax feels that the inner work is critical for creating sustainable change and is currently training to become a certified coach.

Jax consults as Sticky Design Studio where she draws on multiple influences in her practice such as Human-centred Design, Systems Thinking, Futures Thinking and Community Development approaches. Professionally, Jax is passionate about change doing, learning and capability building. She teaches and mentors people interested in social design and change practices, and founded the Social Design Sydney community of practice in 2013 aimed at supporting change makers to do social and systems change work. Learn more about Jax’s projects and publications at jaxwechsler.com or on LinkedIn.

TESTIMONIALS

“Attended Jacqueline (Jax) Wechsler workshop a few weeks ago — strong recommend! Trauma-informed research should be considered essential training and part of all DR practice.” – Megan Elyse Bontempo, Design Research Lead, ideo.org

“Thank you for bringing this topic of conversation to the table in such an informed and articulate way – it has been needed for a long time. I got so much out of it and highly recommend this workshop to my peers who work in design research, co-design and/ or HCD.” – Laura James, Insights & Design Lead, Smith Family

"We’ve found Jax’s insights enormously informative and it has been so valuable to have the space to collectively reflect on our practice as evaluators and how we can create safe spaces, empowerment, collaboration and choice in evaluations. Plenty of good activities to embed the learning too! Thanks Jax!" – Jade Maloney, CEO ARTD Consultants

"Attended an awesome class this morning by Jacqueline (Jax) Wechsler on Trauma Informed Design. Great to get a refresher on some of the theory, alongside some new and refined methods I can mould into my own design process. Highly recommend it for anyone that wants to join the other class that's happening next week!" - Natasha Ballantyne, Experience Strategy Lead, Senior Manager, PwC Experience Consulting

“I had the good fortune of spending time with Jax Wechsler recently, attending her Trauma Informed Design Research training with some team mates. I found her approach engaging and really utility focussed - we left with a clear plan of how to pivot our approach to maximise research engagement whilst minimising harm.

We’re currently leading intensive research across Queensland with seven of the most vulnerable cohorts of the community, and I am confident that we approaching it in the most careful and kind way thanks to the grounding Jax gave us. Highly recommend the 3-part course, the final instalment of the training focussed on how to support yourself during the process and was also of great benefit for the team.” – Laura Campbell, Partner Deloitte Digital