So in the journey of my thesis, I ended up having many different topics. But a huge topic I had was about creating a safe space. I was very curious about a safe space in terms of co-design, and focus groups, and what it looks like to be a facilitator of a safe space. But I was also really curious about where those safe spaces happen in other areas, and who's creating those safe spaces. So you could think of like a teacher, maybe like a nurse, I don't know, a great manager, things like that. And so I was curious about what those overlaps are—what does it take to create a safe space. 

For me, I felt like my best avenue into understanding that was thinking about co-design as a mindset. So you can use co-design as methods, there's a bunch of them, you can co-design with participants, and invite them into the process using the methods. But additionally, there's also a whole co-design mindset that you can have. And I, feel like a lot of people have what I would consider a co-design mindset without ever facilitating co-design. And to me, having a co-design mindset is about understanding that each person's voice is valuable and should be heard, and that they deserve to be there, that they are creative, and that they have a great value to whatever process you're working through. 

In practice, this can look a lot like really good listening skills. But when it came to this topic, in particular, I had a lot of questions as a design researcher about how to create a safe space and yet still be the facilitator. So I often wanted to be a part of the group, and I often wanted to contribute to the designs, I wanted to be involved. But I had to take a step back from that. But while I had to take a step back from being an active designer or co-designer, I still wanted to make sure people felt like I was part of the group, I was listening to them as a peer, not as a researcher. Well, both, I suppose. But I wanted them to see me as a peer in that moment. And I wanted to be a peer, I wanted to listen to them, not with my researcher brain on in that moment, but as a person to another person. And so this did end up looking like a pretty casual way of being a facilitator, I definitely know that this is not the way to do every kind of research, although it was really lovely to be in that space with people and be very relaxed and sociable. 

But it felt completely necessary for this type of research for these kinds of events. I knew that if I came in with a lot of structure being very serious, it would kind of throw people off. I didn't want people to feel like they were being observed so much. I wanted them to feel like it was a casual conversation, to feel like it was going to be fun and exciting, and overall completely safe for them. I knew that nothing could happen correctly in the session if people didn't feel safe. And that was a really big ask because the topic can be so triggering, can be so awkward. And so this was huge and in the front of my mind with everything that I was planning in the way that I brought my energy to the space. 

I wanted to also set a kind of precedent for the energy of the room. I wanted people to walk in and spend as little time as possible, feeling awkward. And a lot of that came from the design of the research. But I also feel like a lot of that came from just the energy of the room and the conversations we had before we started and the way that I would talk and laugh about the topic. I think we can all understand that the topic is serious that sexual and reproductive experiences are a big deal. But it was also really important to me that we could laugh, we could have fun and that it could be as light as possible as we talked through our ideas, and as the participants even got into some more intense and serious conversations.