Many forms of trauma come from a feeling of powerlessness, lack of choice and control and are often experienced in relation to other people. Other people can be the sources of the trauma itself. This can make it difficult for people with lived expereince of trauma to trust and feel safe around 𝘯𝘦𝘸 people. Which make sense, doesn’t it?
🏛️ So how do we, as arts and museums professionals/organisations, build a sense of safety and demonstrate our trustworthiness? Well, if you’re looking for a simple, magical one-stop fail-proof solution that instantly solves this highly complex problem and fits easily into a blog post then… I got news for you, trauma-informed practice is not a checklist or cool infograph.
But here’s one thing I can tell you in a blog post – consistent acts of openess, transparency and choice signal safety to the traumatised body.
Pictured above: A page from my pre-training pack that is sent to participants a week before the training session.
Telling people what to expect when they walk through the door, into the studio… Sending photos of the room where the project will take place or a photo of the artist who is delivering the session. Being clear about information that you assume everyone knows – that entry is completely free, they can talk in the galleries and take photos or there’s a place to eat their packed lunch… and.. I could go on and on.
But you get the picture – openness, transparency, consistency, choice. All signal safety.
📝 If you’re interested in the theory and pracitical implementation of trauma-informed practice in arts, culture and heritage sites then get in touch – 📧 mindful.museums@gmail.com
I first met Jules Wooding, Museum Manager at the Cumbria’s Museum of Military Life, through one of my online Trauma-Informed Practice in Museums training sessions for the Northern Military Museums Network in early 2026.
During the session, Jules shared the story of Blood, Sweat and Tears, an exhibition co-created with veterans who had served in Afghanistan. As she spoke, I was struck by how naturally the project embodied many of the principles that underpin trauma-informed practice. Later, I asked if we could talk in more detail about how the project had evolved. This is Jules’s story.
After securing funding, Jules organised an open day for veterans. What followed was not a traditional consultation exercise. Instead, veterans began talking to one another, sharing memories and experiences. As Jules put it, “I just started asking questions… and then the interaction started.”
The museum created a space where people could engage on their own terms. This reflects the trauma-informed principle of safety, allowing participants to contribute without pressure or expectation.
As conversations developed, so did the project. Veterans recommended it to others and participation grew organically. “They then started talking to people who talked to people,” Jules recalled. Ultimately, more than 30 veterans became involved.
Importantly, the exhibition focused on everyday experiences rather than military operations. Participants talked about food, water, sleeping arrangements, communication with home and daily routines. Jules remembered asking, “What was it like for you?… How did you go to the toilet? How did you sleep?”
For many veterans, this opportunity to talk was significant. Jules explained that some felt when they returned from Afghanistan, people believed they already understood the conflict because they had followed it through the media. As a result, “they didn’t feel that they could talk about it.”
The project therefore became about much more than creating an exhibition. It became, in Jules’s words, “their opportunity for their voice.”
One of the most important aspects of trauma-informed practice is creating opportunities for people to feel heard, acknowledged and understood. The museum didn’t tell veterans’ stories for them. Instead, it created a platform where they could share experiences in their own words and decide how those experiences would be represented.
As Jules explained, “It wasn’t about us telling their story… it had to be their words.”
This commitment to choice, collaboration and empowerment extended throughout the project. Participants helped shape the exhibition, contributed photographs and objects and even decided how the resulting film should be used. When asked whether it should be made publicly available online, they chose not to – and their decision was respected.
The final exhibition had a profound impact. One participant later told Jules, “I watched it and I cried.” Others described feeling recognised and understood through the process. Projects like Blood, Sweat and Tears remind us that museums can be far more than places that preserve objects and interpret history. They are spaces where people feel seen, where experiences are witnessed and where stories that might otherwise remain untold can be shared, valued and preserved for future generations.
Special thanks to Jule Wooding, Museum Manager of Cumbria’s Museum of Military Life.
📌 I can stick a pin in Lithuania on my map of the world museums I’ve worked with! I’m determined to work with a museum in every country in the world. Will I achieve this ambition? Probably not, ha! But I’m having a lot of fun trying.
Here’s some lovely feedback I received about my popular session Mindful in the Museum – engaging with art and objects using mindfulness to support visitor wellbeing.
Happy St. Patrick’s Day, everyone. It is a glorious blue sky here in Manchester, the blossom is out and I’m wearing my green cardigan. I’ve decided it’s going to be a good day. ☘️
In some ways that’s thanks to the work of Dr James Doty, founder and director of the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education in Stanford University.
Dr Doty’s work taught me about the neuroscience behind mindfulness. He spoke about the power of kindness, compassion and the belief that we can all have impact on other people’s lives. Especially those who have had challenging beginnings.
Even if we only meet them for a short period, or even just once. Every interaction is an intervention.
how we treat visitors really matters…
When I talk about trauma-informed practice in museums and galleries I talk about the importance of creating welcoming spaces.
Dr Doty famously had a similar intervention from a kind woman who worked at a magic shop in a mall. He was a child living in a troubled and chaotic home and this stranger’s kindness changed the path of his life.
No matter who you are or what you do, how you treat people matters. Even if you only meet them once. 𝗜𝘁 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝗱𝗼𝗲𝘀 𝗺𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿.
Dr James Doty sadly passed away this week but his work and legacy will live on in the neuroscience research field. 💚
God, I’m in my element here… can you tell? Talking about art, mindfulness, mental health—and just how hard it can be sometimes to be human in the 21st century. The photographer captured a beautiful snapshot of a really great session. Thanks, Helen!
This is a glimpse of a group of strangers experiencing that all-important sense of connection.
My job as the facilitator is to create an environment—a shared dynamic—where we’re all reminded that we’ve got so much more in common than what makes us different. And when I’m working with people who have lived experience of trauma, it’s especially important to communicate this: In this group, in this moment, it’s okay. We’re okay.
It’s safe to be yourself. You can speak without worrying about being judged. No one’s here to trick you, mock you, argue, or criticise. We’re just here to talk—about art, mental health and about being human—and if you’ve got something to say about any of that then I want to hear it.
There’s power in that.
If you’re interested in trauma-informed practice in museums, galleries and heritage then get in touch – mindful.museums@gmail.com
I’m off to, what is fast becoming my second city, Liverpool to deliver a creative wellbeing workshop at Walker Art Gallery for North West Federation of Artists.
A colleague asked me if I’d still be delivering workshops in my new life as a museum consultant. ‘Of course!’ I replied, probably a bit too enthusiastically, as I am known to do.
It’s true a lot of my work now focuses on consultancy and training – around topics like mindful engagement, developing creative health work, trauma-informed practice, measuring impact. But I would never want to give up face to face workshop delivery.
Why? Well, because I love it.
First and foremost, I’m a museum educator
I love learning, I believe in the power of education – I love learning from others and I love when others learn from me. That’s what floats my boat.
It gives me immense joy to share what I’ve learnt over the years about art, museums and mental health and see the impact that has on other people, institutions and peers.
Plus I believe it’s good to keep your hand in the job that you’re training other people to do. Remind yourself what it’s like and what it takes – it only leads to better things.
It’s a practice and we all know what practice makes… progress! (Because perfection isn’t the goal.)
If you interested in consultancy around arts, health, museums and everything in between you can contact me: mindful.museums@gmail.com
Happy Friday everyone, what’s been your Highlight of the Week?
Mine was zooming with the senior leaders from The Armory Arts Centre, in Pasadena, California.
The Armory has recently been at the frontline of a major disaster with the LA wildfires decimating huge parts of their local community. They got in touch with me to discuss arts and trauma-informed practice and ways they could further support their communities, artists and staff who have been directly affected. I was touched by their genuine concern and quiet determination to respond to this very urgent need.
Manchester Together Archive
Arts and cultural organisations play an important role in responding to traumatic events that their surrounding communities experience. When disaster strikes the first question we must ask ourselves is ‘What can we do to help?’
This was certainly the question Manchester Art Gallery, in partnership with Archives + and Dr Kostas Arvanitis asked after the terrible Manchester Arena bombing in 2017. The result led to the creation of the Manchester Together Archive.
Respond – the 3rd of the 4 Rs of trauma-informed practice
One of the most effective protective factors in mitigating against the effects of trauma is ‘Who was there for us when it happened?’. In other words, who helped us? Who showed us that they cared. If we are alone and isolated during and immediately after ‘the event’; then the likelihood that we will experience it as traumatic as opposed to merely stressful or distressing increases.
Who helped? That’s what people will remember.
Art galleries, museums, public cultural services – when it happens on our doorstep we must heed the call.
My father, a barber, understood the power of listening. I learnt from him how important it is.
‘The barber is the working man’s psychiatrist.’ he would tell us. His customers ranged from judges in the high court of Ireland to members of the paramilitaries and everyone in between. I would ask him what sorts of things people told him while they were ‘on the chair’; he would never disclose. It was sacrosanct.
Men told him things they wouldn’t tell their wives, or even their priest. At the height of The Troubles, he said some of the things he heard made the hair on the back of his neck stand up. But he knew that the barbershop was one of the few spaces that men felt comfortable and safe enough to talk. And so, he listened.
Saturday job
I worked in his barber shop every Saturday from the age of 14 for a few years. I’d stand at the till waiting to take payment from customers, and I watched how he listened. The first time I saw it, I was struck by how physical it was. Standing behind the chair, looking at the customer in the mirror, listening intently. The hair cutting had stopped; something important was being said. A stillness came over him as the man in the chair spoke. The look on my Dad’s face, focused but not intense, empathetic without being patronising. And when it was his turn to speak, they listened back.
The impact on wellbeing
Not every customer interaction was like this of course, most of the time it was small talk or no talk at all but every now and again I could tell he was having a real conversation. I learnt a lot about the importance of listening on those Saturdays. Men, even the ‘hard’ ones, walked out lighter than when they walked in.
Being heard, sharing our stories with all our flaws and vulnerabilities, and having that story met with kindness is one of the greatest experiences we can have for our mental health. In museums and galleries we often encounter people’s narratives. When you gather a group of individuals in front of an artwork and ask them what they think of it, you’d be surprised by what comes out. The lives being lived, the perspectives, the personal histories. It’s all in there.
It’s a privilege in my job to hear what people think about art because what they’re really sharing with me is their story. And so, I listen.
Last week I travelled to my hometown Belfast to speak to the wonderful staff at the Ulster Museum.
🏛️ I met with Louise Smyth and the curator of The Troubles and Beyond exhibition Karen Logan and asked them how the museum navigated working with collections that are so explicitly connected to personal and collective trauma. There are literally weapons on display (talk about challenging objects!) and imagery that will no doubt evoke strong emotional responses in both visitors and staff.
What I found most inspiring about their responses was the strong feeling of ‘yes, this is a tough and potentially re-traumatising subject matter but it’s important to share the stories of the conflict’. The sharing of stories is part of the healing process. People often want others to bear witness to their pain.
🏛️ But it’s also important to note that whilst some people want to share, others do not… or at least, not yet.
📍How does a museum bear witness to a painful past through its objects and stories and do it in a way that minimises harm in those still living with the trauma of it?
I’m in Milan! On holiday with my family… but visiting the many wonderful museums here I can’t help but reflect on what a trauma-informed museum would look, feel, behave like.
On a visit to one museum I was told I had to follow a particular route around the spaces. When I tried to go a slightly different way, I was sternly told ‘No’ by staff who looked more like a police officer than a visitor team member.
🖐️It wasn’t even a busy museum, I still don’t know why I had to walk this route. So what? you might be thinking. Well, what struck me was I had no CHOICE in this matter. Along with a few other matters I discovered in the course of my visit. It was clear who was ‘in charge’ in the dynamic and who wasn’t. Hmmm…
Choice – is a key principle of trauma-informed practice. It’s important to integrate choice in a museum experience in any way we can.
Choice supports traumatised people to have a sense of agency and feel in control in a situation – these are often the things that were taken away from them in their trauma.
🏛️ I’m not saying that being told what way to walk around a museum will necessarily cause an extreme emotional response in a person, I’m simply saying… it’s not ideal. These rules and the manner in which we enforce them matter.
🤔 And as museums the very least we can ask ourselves is ‘Are they really necessary?’.
Louise Thompson 