Let Us Be Your Trauma-informed Design Guides
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What is Trauma-informed Design?
Our physical environment can impact our emotions and behaviors, both negatively and positively. They have the ability to increase or reduce our stress. The spaces in which we live and receive services can communicate safety and promote supportive relationships, or they can symbolize lack of dignity and agency, encouraging re-traumatization.
Trauma-informed design (TiD) is about integrating the principles of trauma-informed care, as originally established by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) and continually evolving, into design. The goal is to create physical spaces that promote safety, well-being, and healing. This requires realizing how the physical environment affects identity, worth, and dignity, and how it promotes empowerment.
In order to truly create a space that will support healing in survivors, it is important to cultivate an understanding of the people who will use the space, their identities, culture, and what is important to them, as well as the surrounding community. That understanding can then be used to anticipate and mitigate potential triggers, maximize choice, and create a safe, comfortable environment. As the users of the space develop a sense of safety, they can build resilience, strengthen their ability to emotionally regulate, and better access new opportunities.
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Our Focus
The Trauma-informed Design Society is a transdisciplinary team with a focus on translating research into practice that informs future studies. The Society merges the leadership team's extensive experience in human services and interior architecture with an understanding of trauma science, to help organizations implement a trauma-informed approach in their services and create stress-reducing physical spaces. Daily, we strive to ensure TiD practitioners have access to the latest research and resources, so they can apply TiD to their projects with fidelity.
Our Mission
We work to ensure Trauma-informed Design practitioners have access to the latest research and resources, so they can apply TiD to their projects with fidelity.
To reach this goal, we operate in four main spheres:
We Offer the Largest Repository of TiD Resources
We are learning more everyday about how design affects our social, emotional and physiological health. The Trauma-informed Design Framework is based on empirical and scientific evidence in the realms of psychology, neuroscience, and physiology, which is filtered through an equity lens, and applied to design. It acknowledges the prevalence of trauma throughout society, and the compounding effects of structural inequities on marginalized communities, and seeks to foster healing by promoting spaces that can reduce stress and create a sense of safety. Learn more about the framework and the science behind it through our professional development and credentialing offerings.
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Write your awesome label here.
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Our Team
Janet Roche
Christine Cowart
Dr. J. Davis Harte
Adrienne Erdman