Strong Feelings

Most of us think of trauma as the  capital “T” kind: war, natural disasters, serious abuse. But day-to-day life is full of smaller traumas, and those need to be processed, too: bullying, work stress, the aftermath of the pandemic. Rachael Dietkus of Social Workers Who Design is on a mission to help us do just that.Rachael Dietkus is a writer, author, and social worker focused on the ways trauma shapes how and why we design. Through her organization Social Workers Who Design, Rachael and her team work to normalize and codify trauma-informed practices in design workplaces.We've demonstrated a certain kind of toughness and unplanned resilience that has really been built on this collective trauma of living through a pandemic. And so there can be some power and some comfort in that. I think that with all of the adaptability and need to be adaptable throughout the past several months, what it has really shown us is that we now need flexibility. So is there flexibility in scheduling? Is there flexibility in how and