Growing the TiD Movement: Spring News
- Christine Cowart, MA, TiD-P
- 2 days ago
- 6 min read
A few warm and sunny days sure helps to refresh us in body, mind, and soul! It's Spring here in the US, and we are rejuvenated and developing new connections and offerings at the TiD Society.
TiD Credentialing
Is On A Roll!
Thank you for making the Trauma-informed Design Credentialing Course a wild success!
Since launching the course last fall, each session has been full, with many additional inquires. To meet the level of interest, we quickly adjusted things to offer an additional third session this year. Registration is now open for both, a summer and fall session:
May 9, 2026 - August 28, 2026
and
August 1, 2026 - November 20, 2026
The course is a 16-week immersion into the TiD Framework and how to apply it to real-world projects. It sets practitioners up to lead in this new field and to enter into an intentional community of practice with others doing this trauma-informed work.
The course designed to accommodate participants from around the world, and is appropriate for human services and public health professionals, clinicians, architects, and designers. To date, we have had participants from more than six countries across three continents--and we're ready to expand our reach! Bridging the gap between the health and mental health risks associated with trauma and the impact design can have to aggravate or mitigate those, the course is created with different approaches based on participants' backgrounds, with no design experience necessary.
Want to know more?
Use the links below to learn more about the course and read the credentialing program standards.
We are proud of the quality we provide. Here's feedback we received from early participants:
Trauma-informed Design Continuing Education (CEU) Courses
TiD credentialing is not a one-and-done course. As TiD is a rapidly growing and evolving practice, it's essential to stay current. One method TiD practitioners can use to maintain their status and achieve high credential levels is through TiD CEU courses.
To that end, we've been diligently working to develop new CEU offerings for TiD practitioners. These courses are available to both, credentialed and non-credentialed practitioners, and most can be used to satisfy continuing education requirements from other professional organizations, including the American Institute of Architects (AIA), International Design Continuing Education Council (IDCEC), and National Association of Social Workers (NASW).
New CEUs:
Prerequisite for TiD CEU enrollment by non-credentialed practitioners
This one hour course provides a high-level overview of key TiD concepts, and is required for non-credentialed practitioners before enrolling in other CEU courses. It begins with an explanation of the full scope of trauma and its possible impacts, a base level of understanding necessary in order to design effective solutions for survivors. The course then moves into an overview of trauma-informed care principles, which serve as the launching pad for Trauma-informed Design. Finally, the course introduces the Trauma-informed Design Framework, including its three spheres and eleven domains, through which practitioners can create spaces that promote safety, resilience, and healing.
Schools’ Need for TiD and a Tool to Help It Happen
This course introduces the TiD Society's evidence-based tool to facilitate interior design renovations and new builds of K-12 schools. The tool can be used to evaluate the physical space and identify changes that can lower the stress levels of students and staff. This course provides a brief overview of trauma and its possible negative impacts on educational opportunities. It then introduces the TiD framework and explains how the TiDEvalK12 tool was developed. Participants learn about the tool, how it can be applied to new builds and remodels, and its functionality in helping educators understand the language of design. Designers are provided with tools to help educators understand the possible improved student outcomes with a TiD approach.
Sphere 2: Developing an Awareness of Contributing Factors and Supportive Approaches
TiD is a practice informed by our growing awareness and demands ethical, respectful, and supportive practices. As a training based in the second sphere of the TiD Framework, this session focuses on trauma-informed approaches to the design process. This is accomplished, first, by illustrating the depth of understanding designers should strive to develop through their population research, and then, by addressing how we can adjust our approach to the research process, to ensure that we do not cause harm throughout our interactions.
This 2.5 hour course opens by exploring the link between marginalization and trauma, and the impact they have on education. Next, it examines the factors contributing to the marginalization of students from specific communities or who have had certain experiences. With this information as background, the session then considers how we can adjust our approach to the design process as a result. It explores how human-centered design methods can help designers lead students and other invested parties through the design process with minimal risk of harm. Participants will learn how careful risk assessment and mitigation, trauma-informed language, and regulation support can help them create schools that foster strength and resiliency, while protecting participants throughout the design process.
We have many more CEUs in the works, as well as TiD Society Project Reviews.
TiD Society Project reviews offer another way credentialed practitioners can maintain their status and achieve high credential levels. We are currently developing the program standards for this path, and will be launching it soon.
Check back regularly or subscribe to our website for updates!
EDRA57
The Trauma-informed Design Society will be at the Environmental Design Research Association (EDRA) conference next month in Amherst, Massachusetts.
We'll be looking to share, learn, and connect with others who share our passion for promoting healing through thoughtfully created spaces. In addition, we have the honor of presenting the following sessions:
Professionalizing the Trauma-Informed Design Framework: Insights from the Trauma informed Design Society’s Credentialing and CEUs Programs
As trauma-informed approaches gain traction across education, healthcare, housing, justice settings, and community development, design professionals face growing responsibility to understand the relationship between trauma, perception, and the built environment. Yet architects and designers have historically lacked an evidence-based educational pathway to develop the competencies required to practice TiD ethically and effectively. The TiD Society has responded to this gap by creating the first formal credentialing program and a suite of CEUs dedicated specifically to TiD. This presentation provides an in-depth look at how the TiD Society’s credentialing program was developed, the scientific and ethical foundations that inform it, and why its existence represents a critical milestone for environmental design research and professional practice.
Participants will gain insight into:
A method for translating research into structured design frameworks;
How practice-based knowledge and lived experience were used to refine or challenge existing knowledge; and
Strategies for creating a credentialing program and case-study assessments in ways that strengthen accountability and advance the reliability of TiD.
The session will provide a scalable model for creating similar training opportunities, based on the TiD Society's method of integrating trauma-informed care into the built environment and creating more equitable, health-promoting spaces.
Playing the Future of Learning Environments: A Trauma-Informed, Systems-Based World Game Using the Trauma- informed Design Framework
Evidence suggests that TiD can help students remain within their emotional window of tolerance and improve health outcomes. Student learning spaces can communicate safety and promote supportive relationships, or can symbolize lack of dignity and agency, facilitating re-traumatization. Using evidence-based TiD approaches, schools can create environments that support positive long-term health and opportunity outcomes for students and staff alike. Design elements can foster dignity, respect, and personal autonomy, which support students’ self-regulation and healing.
This workshop introduces an adaptation of the International Futures Forum (IFF) World Game, which integrates game design principles with system thinking, and allows participants to assume roles like safety, comfort, movement, play, equity, and community. Participants will map relationships and interactions between the 11 TiD domains that serve as the game’s “design nodes.” By engaging participants in systems-level thinking and the combination of multiple ideas, interventions, or strategies, this exercise is designed to generate powerful solutions that might not otherwise be conceived.
Participants will move through three rounds of collaborative play. In round one, "Mapping Challenges", participant groups will identify current spatial and behavioral challenges in K–12 or higher-education environments through the lens of their assigned TiD domain. Round two, "Generating Responses" will invite participants to propose strategies that support student well-being and enhance their domain while considering interdependencies with others. In the third round, the moderator will introduce short prompts representing disruptions (e.g., increased student anxiety, climate stressors, social conflict) and opportunities (e.g., community partnerships, new policies, flexible learning models). These scenarios encourage rapid adaptation of strategies and demonstrate how the TiD Framework domains strengthen students' resilience.
The core purpose of this session is twofold:
To build participant literacy in the Trauma-informed Design Framework; and
To understand how practitioners conceptualize, prioritize, or adapt TiD principles.
Reflection cards and mapping exercises will provide preliminary data on domain familiarity and perceived applicability of TiD domains to both K-12 and university settings. Participants will leave with a deeper understanding of the Trauma-informed Design Framework, a systems-based method for applying them, and collaboratively generated design strategies that align with EDRA57’s theme.
Come join us for connection, friendship, and learning!
Are you doing something wonderful in the world of
Trauma-informed Design?
Let the world know!
Join the TiD Society community of practitioners on our website, and post about your successes on the TiD Society Connect discussion forum. It's a space where you can connect with other TiD practitioners, get information, and share projects and support.
To find it, navigate to "More" on the website's menu, then select "Discussion Forum."
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