UTS Learning Design Meetup: Designing in complex contexts - a case study

“There’s an overwhelming sense of responsibility and anxiety for clinicians. We need a resource that makes sense to someone who doesn’t do this all the time, who’s time-poor and already stressed. We need to reassure them that they already know how to do this work”

This comment reflects the complex requirements and stakeholder interactions that learning designers must often navigate and negotiate in their day-to-day work across diverse institutions. The words are those of a Subject Matter Expert (SME) on a project at the Education Centre Against Violence, designing resources to bridge the gap between clinical training and practice for NSW Health workers who provide specialist responses to children under the age of 10. Despite extensive experience, therapeutic work in this space remains extremely challenging, with low confidence among clinicians and limited practical resources to support hands-on work with children and caregivers. To share this authentic case study and explore the learning design dimensions of this complex context and subject matter, we are delighted to bring back the UTS Learning Design Meetup! This session will be of interest to current and emerging learning designers, and also health educators and professionals.

Joining us is guest speaker Allison Franks from the NSW Health Education Centre Against Violence. In 2024, Allison led the project in this case study as part of a broader Ministry of Health strategy responding to the 2017 Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. Allison joins Lucy Blakemore (project researcher, writer and learning designer) and Elham Hafiz (project accessibility consultant) to explore key aspects of learning design in this complex clinical environment, including:

• The design brief and challenges
• Design principles guiding the work
• Collaboration with stakeholders, including SMEs, to ensure resources were fit for purpose
• The iterative design process, including the development of resources from rough prototypes to finished designs
• Responses from clinicians in the field

The resulting 'Conversation Cards' and 'Companion Guide' have now been distributed to local health districts across NSW, with self-print versions available for download.