Social Workers Who Design

// Values-based Understanding

Identifying personal and organizational values is essential to practicing ethical, responsible design. The principles of anti-oppressive, anti-racist, care-focused, and healing-centered design are congruent with the core values of social work: service, social justice, dignity and worth of the person, integrity, and the value of the importance of human relationships.

// Practicing Social Work

As a discipline committed to a holistic approach to people in their environments, social workers are dedicated to ensuring psychological and physiological safety while minimizing harm and navigating the challenges of how to be with harm. We adhere to practice standards and a Code of Ethics and have practice-based knowledge to address and process challenges before they are designed.

// Practice that is Trauma Responsive

The creative process of design is a powerful tool taught and used in education, industry, and the social sector. We practice necessary, emerging mindset shifts that are care-ful and move us towards next practices.

// Our Core Principles

We work by adhering to the following principles:

1. Building and sustaining trust with meaningful connections

2. Listening to learn and understand through curiosity

3. Establishing and maintaining ethical rapport and social support

4. Giving authentically and generously with acknowledgment

5. Creating and generating access and accessibility

6. Perseverance and consistent care by design

Read in more detail about how we put these principles into practice.

// The Model of Change for Trauma Responsive Design Research

What might a unique model of change look like that integrates anti-oppressive social work values, responsible design research, and ethical trauma-informed principles?

Read more about our evolving model of change.

// Practice makes pattern.

We write, speak, and present on several topics, including the value of social workers in design spaces, design leadership and culture, and trauma-responsive design, research, and practice.

For a listing of past and upcoming public events, visit events for additional details.

The following are recent and forthcoming publications:

On Trauma Informed Design

An interview with Alison Place and included in Feminist Designer: On the Personal and the Political in Design, to be published by The MIT Press in September 2023.

Trauma-Informed Interviewing Considerations and Approaches

A paper co-authored with Melanie Sage, to be included in Qualitative Research Methods, published by Routledge Press, forthcoming in Summer / Fall 2023

The Call for Trauma-Informed Design Research and Practice

A highly-read short paper included in a special Civic Design Futures issue of dmi:Review and released in June 2022.

// Design encourages practitioners to address complex social problems.

Understanding context and working with a holistic framework are essential to our work. So what shifts when social workers are integrated within civic, service, design, and tech spaces? We call it: care by design.

Work we are grateful to be:

• Collaborating to build new design processes with a trauma-responsive design focus that makes reflective awareness

• Providing valuable debriefing and processing sessions for design researchers to address and mitigate secondary trauma

• Helping with skills building and mindset shifting with teams to design responsibly and ethically

• Connecting teams to highly-skilled social workers and peer-to-peer trainers

• Working with teams on evolving trauma-responsive design methods and practices that are equitable and accessible

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