The Den’s Mindfulness Kit

Understanding Trauma

While unpacking my own trauma, a thought came to mind, how would my life have been if I knew how to cope with traumatic events that I’ve experienced in a healthy way? How could access to healing tools positively impacted pivotal moments during my teenage years? In what ways can design be used to design meaningful resources?

The first step was understanding trauma and how it impacts youth. Researching the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE’s) study led to research on complex and race-based trauma, PTSD and microaggressions. You can get a more indepth look into my research and findings in my thesis book (link).

Exploring Tools for Teens

The design process began by exploring a free online counseling and therapy app for teens. Designing the app led me to question how creating a digital platform would add to the accessibility of mental health resources.
I was then met with a challenge, is an app accessible for teens of varying economic backgrounds? This would exclude a large part of my target audience.