Engaging people who are living in vulnerable circumstances or who have experienced traumatic events is not about avoiding difficult conversations: it’s about approaching them with care, clarity and respect.

Research can offer an important opportunity to share experiences that are often overlooked or misunderstood, but only when it is conducted safely and considerately for participants and researchers alike.

The unifying factor for people who have experienced trauma (however differently) is a feeling of loss of agency. In turn, losing control drives a feeling of ontological insecurity (how people maintain a coherent sense of self, despite life’s uncertainties and the impact this type of major change may have on them). A trauma-informed research approach recognises this, and prioritises returning agency: offering choice, setting clear expectations, and ensuring participants can decide what they share and how they share their experience.

Done right, this approach not only protects wellbeing but can help empower people to tell their stories on their own terms, contributing to evidence that is richer, more accurate and more humane. But doing this type of research can be taxing for researchers, too – looking after yourself and the team should be a key part of truly trauma-informed practice.

Why a trauma-informed approach?

The Government’s Office for Health Improvement & Disparities defines trauma as ‘[resulting] from an event, series of events, or set of circumstances that is experienced by an individual as harmful or life threatening’. Trauma can affect individuals, groups and communities, and their ability to participate in research may be affected by their experiences (as also further explored in the MRS Best Practice Guide on Research Participant Vulnerability).

The extent to which trauma impacts someone’s day-to-day life can vary widely. It is increasingly recognised trauma has psychological, biological and societal impacts. It can inhibit people from being able to engage with services or behaviours that may feel ‘normal’ or every day for others, and vulnerability can fluctuate over the course of research interaction.

A variety of factors influence the way we experience events in our lives, and many of us will be vulnerable at one point or another. Understanding this context helps to build a more representative picture of an individual, avoiding reducing them to only one element of their identity, and failing to fully grasp their resilience, strength and perspective within this vulnerability.

Implementing a participant empowerment model

Trauma-informed practice in research should seek to avoid re-traumatisating participants, enable participation and respect the different needs and experiences participants bring to the research. While it can be easy to shy away from doing research with those who have experienced trauma, we should aim to make space for their stories in a way which centres the participants themselves.

We strive to ensure our engagement process gives this sense of power back to participants by being flexible, transparent, empathetic and open to their needs and how they tell their story.

Our experience has informed our ethos for delivering this type of research and is underpinned by the five pillars of the participant empowerment model: co-creative, participant-led, flexible, holistic and rewarding.

Looking after yourself and your team

Though a key part of trauma-informed research is safeguarding participants, we believe to be able to create the safe space (not only physically but psychologically) for participants to share traumatic experiences and to be able to ‘hold’ and process it effectively, the researcher and team must consider their own safeguarding and resilience. This requires thoughtful, proactive measures to protect the wellbeing of the research team. This begins with a foundation of strong, clearly communicated safeguards: having a named point of contact for support, defined escalation routes, and clear procedures for emergencies.

This is about more than just processes and procedures, though – the ability to be reflective of practice and put in place strategies that work for us and our team is just as important. In this spirit, below we provide some personal reflections from our own practice to help manage truly trauma-informed practices.

Adina: Theory doesn’t (always) survive first contact with reality

For me, trauma-informed research isn’t theoretical, it’s something I’ve felt deeply. As someone who has experienced housing insecurity, interviewing people who are currently unhoused hits differently. The same goes for speaking to migrants in precarious situations when you’ve lived through your own version of that story. Even when you’re the researcher, those conversations can surface emotions you didn’t plan for, and they can stay with you long after the interview is over.

That’s why looking after yourself and your team is non-negotiable. We build in breaks, we have clear points of contact for support, and we use a buddy system, so no one carries the emotional weight alone. Planning for the unexpected isn’t about assuming things will go wrong: it’s about making space for the very human reactions that come with listening to difficult experiences. Allowing your team to experience the work empathetically, rather than pushing everything down, helps normalise those reactions instead of thinking of them as ‘avoid at all costs’.

I’ve also learned how important honesty is. Even seasoned researchers can feel overwhelmed, and sometimes the response is to swing too far the other way: to shut down emotionally or become desensitised just to cope. That’s why we make it explicit that it’s OK to say no to a particular interview or task. Opting out isn’t a failure; it’s self-protection, and it keeps the work safer for everyone.

Carol: Caring for your team needs to extend beyond fieldwork

One thing I’ve learned over the years is that vicarious trauma doesn’t just happen in the interview room. In fact, some of the heaviest moments can come later, during analysis, when you’re sitting with people’s stories for hours at a time. I’ve seen brilliant researchers surprised by how strongly certain testimonies affect them, and I’ve felt it myself, even after decades of doing this work. Analysis is not a purely technical exercise; it needs the same level of care and protection as fieldwork.

We build breaks into brainstorms because no one should be absorbing distressing material non-stop. I make a point of being transparent upfront about what we’ll be covering so no one gets blindsided, and we always give colleagues a clear heads-up when insights will include difficult or sensitive content. Storytelling is one of the most powerful tools we have: it allows people to speak in their own words and reclaim their narrative, but it can reopen emotional wounds for the people analysing those stories if we’re not intentional about how we handle them.

Over the years, I’ve seen how much of a difference it makes when you create space for people on the team to connect and decompress (even quick chats over tea and biscuits, virtual drop-ins or informal debriefs). Small moments of support help researchers process what they’ve heard and remind them they’re not carrying it alone. This kind of care isn’t extra; it’s essential if we want our teams to stay safe, grounded, and able to do this work with humanity.

Trauma-informed practice requires intentional safeguards before, during and after the research, not only to uphold ethical standards, but to ensure the wellbeing and resilience of the team who make this work possible while respecting the stories participants choose to share with us to inform research.

Adina Pintilie-Brown is associate director and Carol McNaughton Nicholls is managing partner at Thinks Insight & Strategy