What?
Healing-Centred Design® is a evidence-based, transformation framework which blends trauma-informed practice, systems thinking and creative coaching.
‘Healing-Centred’ guides safe, supported teamwork using human skills like creativity, compassion and critical thinking.
‘Design’ creates sustainable productive solutions, instead of defaulting to urgent quick-fixes.
Why?
Work is often designed for urgency, not real life.
That creates pressure, causing conflict and overload. This way of working drains people and limits performance.
Healing-Centred Design® helps people move from pain to power, refocus on what matters, prioritise wellbeing and design sustainable impact.
How?
We use Healing-Centred Design® to redesign how work happens.
We work with teams, organisations and communities to develop human skills, like adaptability, trust-building, conflict navigation, compassion and critical thinking.
We then support groups to apply these skills and reshape time, tasks, people, power and value, creating healthier ways of working and sustainable results.
The Healing-Centred Design® Change Journey
Healing-Centred Design moves through 6 stages, each providing an opportunity to explore change through a different lens, creating depth, coherence and structured progression.
| Stages | Purpose and Outcomes |
| Frame (to dance within) | Co-create a container for our work together, developing a safe and inspiring space to connect and collaborate with clear parametres for our work together. |
| Pain to Power | Connect experiences, needs and indicators of success, Understand individual, group and systemic challenge and identify collective strengths. |
| Mend + Tend | Identify potential improvements and opportunities, Learn what needs to be repaired or changed (mend) and what needs to be nurtured or supported (tend). |
| Principles, Practices + Processes | Engage in creative, conversation-based groupwork exploring how to create 5 outcomes Regulation and safety | Decisions and prioritises| Innovation and activation | Time to process and reflect | Equity and sustainability |
| Micro-Missions | Design solutions then, test using an Action Learning Set approach, learn through Sensemaking and Reflective Practice sessions. |
| Tools + Resources | Coproduce tools and resources to support teams to implement and embed positive change and guide future transitions. |
For People
Facilitation School is an experiential learning opportunity for leaders, coaches + educators. We share how to use Healing-Centred Design®, blending trauma-informed practice, creative coaching and systems thinking, to facilitate and lead memorable, impactful change.
Our founder Kerry wrote a book, nominated for The Peoples Book Award, about change in the purpose-led sector, and living with chronic pain. The book, Healing-Centred Transformation: Mend, Tend and Change the Future, shares real people’s experiences of turning pain, into power.
For Organisations
When pressure rises, Healing-Centred Design® uses human skills to redesign how work happens. We support people, reduce pressure, and strengthen performance so teams can deliver brilliant results.
Our learning + Development awaydays, training, and coaching support teams to collaborate using human skills, connecting strategy, operations and people.
Our programmes support leadership and staff teams to refocus on what matters, prioritise wellbeing and design sustainable results together. We offer 2 programmes,
The Brilliant Workplace (organisational development) and The Brilliant Club (wellbeing support).
For Places
Healing-Centred Placemaking is our partnership and coproduction projects, involving work with councils, NHS teams, local infrastructure and in neighbourhoods.
When the places we live, work and play are safe and healthy the future feels brilliant.
We work with councils, NHS teams, local infrastructure organisations and communities to co-design healthy systems, services and community wellbeing.
Healing-Centred Design principles shape our work
| Rhythm + Ritual | Practices that create patterns and certainty |
| Filter | Processes to help sort, prioritise and make choices |
| Collide + Align | Blending ideas from different sources to create something new |
| Transition | Creating spaces in between, pauses for processing and reflection |
| Contribute + Benefit | Balancing giving and receiving for equity and sustainability |
Tools + Resources
Powerful tools and resources help us all design change, here are some we have designed.
Trauma-Informed Communities Toolkit this was codesigned with Bolton’s community sector and supports healing-centred working practices.
The Brilliant Box coaching cards include 40 expressive image cards and 40 unique coaching exercises and reflection prompts for self-coaching and team development.