NUX Leeds April 2024 - researching with people who have experienced trauma and missing voices in research

2. Tonight’s line up:
● Speed Networking
● Talk: Trauma Informed Research, Ian
Franklin
● Break
● Talk: Missing Voices, Sujana Crawford
● Q&A
LEEDS
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3. Thanks to our sponsors
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7. LIVERPOOL
Thursday 8th February 2024
6:00 - 8:30pm
Speed
Networking
LEEDS

8. @nuxuk #nuxlds #nuxuk
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How to Speed Network
● 3 questions - 3 mins each
● Find a person with a different colour
sticker to you
● Share your answer to the question, and
bingo! You’re networking!

9. @nuxuk #nuxlds #nuxuk
LEEDS
Q1:
How did you hear about the
event tonight, and is this
your first NUX?

10. @nuxuk #nuxlds #nuxuk
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Q2:
If you could redesign any
app or website, which one
would it be and what
changes would you make?

11. @nuxuk #nuxlds #nuxuk
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Q3:
What's the best piece of
advice you've ever been
given?

12. Seats, please!
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13. Slido details
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Join at Slido.com
#2052797

14. LIVERPOOL
Thursday 8th February 2024
6:00 - 8:30pm
Trauma
Informed
Research
Ian Franklin
LEEDS

15. Trauma Informed User Research:
reflections from food bank
volunteering
Ian Franklin
ian.franklin@ideasmiths.co.uk

16. Who am I?
Chartered Psychologist (BPS)
Registered Psychologist (HCPC)
Associate Fellow (BPS)

17. UR in government and
health

18. More than food
https://www.signpostsheffield.co
.uk/

19. “30p Lee”
Concept of the
deserving and
undeserving poor

20. Structure
• What is Trauma
• User Research Concepts
• Managing in the Moment
• Setting up the research – Your Team

21. Trauma

22. What is trauma?
Bad stuff happens to
Good People
(and Bad People)
(??Deserving and Undeserving??)

23. What is trauma?
Bad stuff happens to
People

24. What is trauma?
Trauma is common
(25% by age 18)

25. “I was stabbed
and died”
“My friend tried
to kill me”

26. Causes – single and multiple events
• Life is threatened or observe life being threatened
• Shattered assumptions about how the world should
work
• Ongoing trauma
• Past events in childhood
• Transgenerational
(PTSD, EUPD)

27. Effects
• Alcohol and drug abuse
• Problems maintaining personal relationships
• Dysfunctional relationships
• Intrusive thoughts
• Unable to manage emotions, especially anger

28. Effects
• Problems holding down a job
• Tendency to act without thinking (impulsivity)
• Poor decision making (executive functioning)
• Low educational attainment (if trauma in childhood)
• Depression and other mental health issues
• Poverty and many more …

29. What will we experience
Fight, flight, freeze, flop and fawn

30. User Research
Some Concepts

32. We use psychotherapeutic
techniques in qualitative
research

33. People will tell us stuff
(magic of active listening)

34. Power
Yours Theirs
YOU are
the person
Of POWER

35. Participant/User
safeguarding
(Do no harm)
Research ethics
obligations

36. Empathy – (URs USP)
(unconditional positive regard)
What does it
mean?

37. Their perception is their
reality
(Don’t take someone’s lived
experience from them
- disempowerment)

38. Leave your baggage
behind

39. Your user is not you
(Pluralistic)
What does it
mean?

40. Their values are not your
values
What does it
mean?

41. Their safe space is not your
safe space
What does it
mean?

42. User Research is intrinsically an
unsafe space

43. What can we do?
Managing in the moment

44. What is most important …
Dealing with what is in front of you
… managing in the moment

45. Boundary setting & Creating a Safe Space
Contracting
• Setting expectations
• What we are here to do
• Setting the scene for the conversation
• What will happen
• What we will ask you to do
• Their privacy will be respected (anonymity)
• Confidentiality (bounded)

46. Maintain safe space (containment)
• Choice
• Ensure agency, give them agency
• Empowerment
• Active listening
• Acknowledgement
• Collaboration
• We are working together – co-design, co-creation
• Maintain Unconditional Positive Regard
• Stay non-judgemental (if you can’t leave)
• Open body language
• Cultural consideration
• Sensitive and understanding of their context

47. Maintain safe space (Containment)
• Give them time to speak – the power of the pause
• De-escalate
• Neutral voice
• Open body language
• Trustworthiness
• Honesty
• Transparency
• Validation of their feelings
• ‘I can see you are upset’
• Accept that their perception is their reality

48. What is most important …
Hear the message
not the anger

49. Bringing people back - grounding activities
• Bring them back to the present
• Refocus on the task
• Ask about the situation now
• The user need now
• Find the positive

50. Support for Participants
• What can we offer?
• Where can we signpost?
• Organisations
• Charities
• Support groups
• Who can we contact?
• Who can we refer to?
• Who can we encourage they engage/reconnect with –
services and people

51. Giving a tissue is fine,
Giving a hug is not.

52. Setting up the research
Scope for trauma

53. User researcher trauma
(User researcher/UCD team
safeguarding)

54. Scope for trauma – risk management
• What is our project about?
• What is the possibility of trauma emerging?
• Who are we seeing?
• What are they doing?
• What is their context of use?
• What issues might they have?
• How might they feel?
• Why will the trauma have happened?
• How might the trauma be revealed in the context of our project?

55. What will you do?
• What will be the boundary for you?
• What and how much trauma can you be exposed to?
• How will you retreat?
• What will you say?
• How will you keep it calm?
• How will you prepare your team?
• Maintain safeguarding of the participant

56. Support for URs and Agile Team
• Team’s knowledge of trauma
• Team’s experience of trauma
• Triggers
• Debrief sessions
• Organisational mechanisms – access to councillors,
employee support services
• Leadership support?????
• Training courses

57. Time for a break
LEEDS
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58. LIVERPOOL
Thursday 8th February 2024
6:00 - 8:30pm
Missing Voices
Sujana Crawford
LEEDS

59. Hi!
I’m Sujana
User Researcher &
theatre enthusiast.
Also, very new to Leeds so
please do come say hi and tell
me about fun things to do here!

61. Me: Imagine having to rush to shelter now!
Sarah: That’s the thing I can’t get my head around.
Me: Is anybody asking them?
Sarah: I’m told they won’t engage.
Me: That’s BS.
Sarah: It’s mostly only men who show up to meetings it seems.
Me: I wouldn’t either, not in this state!
Sarah: One to one interviews aren’t working either.
Me: Who’s doing the interviewing?
Sarah: It’s not just men…I don’t think. I don’t know!
Me: Just get someone to to pick up the phone and ask them! I bet they’d be glad
someone cared to ask.
The seed conversation

62. “But we have spoken to their family
members and they’ve told us what it is like
for them” Various work colleagues

63. Nepal – Study Sites

64. The most marginalised groups of people in flood
affected regions of Nepal.
Groups of people most adversely affected by flooding.
Gaps in the data that had been collected over the last 5
years.
01
02
03
Gender
Social inequalities and
power
Disabilities
We looked at
What stood out

65. Differentiated impacts of disasters: Some people, including
women, girls, elderly, LGBTQIA+, and people with disabilities are more
vulnerable to disasters than others, AND they are also the ones missing
from mainstream data gathering methods and decision-making
processes.

69. Missing Voices Approach
Step 1:
Identify which
marginalised or
vulnerable sub-groups
(beyond headings of
women, children etc)
are excluded.
Step 3:
Targeted and deep
listening to the
personal experiences
of differentiated
impact, needs and
opportunities.
Step 5:
Ongoing engagement and
feedback loop to ensure
marginalised or vulnerable
people are centred in
design, policy and
practice.
Step 2:
Outreach to individuals
facing multiple areas of
marginalisation, using the
snowball technique
Step 4:
Proactive action (in
partnership) to identify
and reduce differential
impact.

70. • Dalit women with young babies
• Women who are blind or have a
significant visual impairment
• Gender minorities
• Women with significant physical
disability
• Young women (teenagers)
• Widows
• Married Women
We spoke to 28 people in total.
Few of them we reached after following
recommendations of upto 4 people. Few of
them we spoke to up to 4 times, at a time of
their choosing. At least 2 representatives from
each group. Some sessions lasted 5 minutes,
while others lasted upto 60 minutes.
Target Groups What we did

71. “After the flood, when I told my husband I could not swim to go get help
because of the clothes I was wearing, he seemed surprised. He had never
considered it. Also, generally we aren’t encouraged to swim, so we never get a
chance to become strong swimmers. I don’t know how to explain this to a man,
even to my own husband (Durga, married mother of three children, eastern
Nepal).“
I have never attended any meetings. They are mainly attended by men. They
don’t often ask women to them, and when they do, it is only the educated
women. Not women like me. I don’t think I would even understand what they’re
saying, let alone be of use to them. (Maya, middle-aged widow with two
children, mid-west Nepal).

72. “The biggest barrier for me to attend preparedness meetings is my family’s
attitude. Unless they give me permission and offer support, I simply won’t be
able to. (Subina, Subina, woman with a disability, far-west Nepal).
“When it started becoming clear we would be flooded and we had to leave, I was
worried because I was due my monthly period. My concern was, in case my
brothers decided to seek shelter in the temple grounds like in the previous years, I
would not be able to stay with the rest of the family [because menstruating women are
considered ritually impure and are taught to not enter temple grounds].” (Sandhya,
teenage girl, eastern Nepal).

73. “At night, most women remained alert for fear of rape and unwanted attention.
Many men drank at night. Especially as a disabled person, already reliant on
others for everything, if anybody was to behave badly with me, I know I would
hesitate to complain for two reasons: first, I did not want to cause any more
trouble for my family. And second, when disabled women have been abused in
the past, people have been dismissive when complaints were made” (Subina,
woman with a disability, far-west Nepal).
“At the shelter and afterwards when in a temporary tent, my family wanted me to
keep to myself and not even step out of the small space designated to us unless
strictly necessary. I knew this was because they wanted to keep me safe; we have
personally known of incidents where young women who got separated from their
families got taken away by human traffickers (Sandhya, teenage girl, eastern
Nepal).
“

74. Key Changes Since
● Shelters prioritise women, children, and gender
minorities' needs.
● Local dialect door-to-door warnings about rise in
water levels more commonly used.
● Enhanced records capture disabilities' location and
accessibility needs, enabling timely rescue in case
of flooding.
● Field teams trained for inclusive community
meetings.

75. Benefits of Missing Voices
● Going beyond ‘what’ and ‘how many’ and getting to ‘how’ and ’why’
● Responding to the fundamental right to be heard
● Using the power of stories and first-person narratives
● Seeking out those most marginalized
● Understanding intersectionality
● Providing a safe space
● Closing data gap

76. Limitations of Missing Voices
● Missing Voices interview insights cannot provide information on how many people
have the same experiences, and their stories should not be interpreted as representing
the experiences of all people with similar vulnerability profiles.
● The Missing Voices Approach should be integrated with other sources of information,
including disaggregated quantitative data, qualitative data, and contextual data on
inequality
● It is important to note that, even by taking the Missing Voices Approach, there may be
reasons why the perspectives of certain people may not be captured.

77. Missing Voices in the world today

78. My current User Research Practice
• Deep listening as opposed to simply going through a list a questions.​
• Identifying and prioritising marginalised voices in all contexts, employing
suitable research methods.
• Engaging with broader contexts for a comprehensive understanding.
• Reflecting on personal biases and knowledge limitations.
• Ensuring accessibility in recruitment process and research methods.
• Remaining flexible and creating safe and comfortable spaces for
participants to open up.
• Reflecting on whose voice might still be missing in any given context.

79. Relevant Documents
● Missing Voices Manual
● Gender transformative early warning systems: experiences from Nepal
and Peru, Flood Resilience Alliance
● Missing Voices: experience of marginalized gender
groups in disaster in Nepal and Peru, Flood Resilience Alliance.
● Gender and age inequality of disaster risk, UN Women and UNICEF,
report commissioned for Global Platform on DRR 2019.

80. Q&A with our speakers
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Thanks for coming!
● Next event Thurs 2nd May
● Share the night on your socials
(don’t forget the tag: #nuxuk)
● Tell us what you think
● Call for speakers, sponsors and hosts!

82. #nuxuk
Let’s continue the
conversation…
Turn left out of the building and head towards
the station.
The Brew Society,
26 Aire St