Creating safe spaces: trauma-informed design

In order for organisations to be trauma-informed or trauma-responsive, safety is paramount. It is the foundation on which everything else is balanced. When organisations feel unsafe, staff and service users can feel fearful, anxious, and stressed. We want to find different ways within organisations to increase feelings of safety and decrease feelings of threat, fear, and danger so people can engage with the healing process. Much of this is about the relationships within those spaces, but the space itself also has a role to play. Hope Street is a purpose built, trauma-informed residential centre for women in the justice system. It will be the first building in the UK to incorporate the values of trauma informed practice into its design and build. One of the key ways it achieves this is through service user consultation at all stages of the design process. I’ll use some of this feedback today to show how Hope Street is literally building the value of safety into the design of the centre, focusing on principles that can be applied to wherever service are delivered – whether that’s the local cafe, a space in some else’s organisation, or your own organisation’s building.