Consultancy & Research

Supporting Organisations to adopt a trauma-informed, 'seriously joyful approach'. For organisations who work directly or indirectly with with children, sexual assault, mental/ health services, dating or Arts, Design and Media.

Trauma-Informed Design & Research

As an experienced design researcher, Sophia can lead product teams to research service offerings around childhood sexual abuse and sexual trauma. Each package is bespoke and includes a range of methods, like Qualitative design research (1-1 Interviews, Focus Groups, Workshops, trauma-informed recruitment), Insights & Synthesis, Journey and Service Mapping and Co-Design with Survivors.

Spotlight Project:
Mapping out the UK Survivor Support Journey

Thanks to funding from UnLtd, we are beginning work to map the first ever end-to-end reporting journey for childhood sexual abuse. This piece of work, done in collaboration with prosecution lawyers, social workers, charities, grassroots community groups and the legal and justice system will allow us to better identity gaps and biases so we can come up with survivor-centred responses to provide better support. At the early stages, this work focuses on identifying abuse, deciding whether to report all the way through to conviction and beyond.

We are looking for interested collaborators and sponsors for this work, so please contact us at sophia@secretsworthsharing.com if you wish to take part.

Watch Sophia speaking at the Masters Series conference at the University of Oxford to explain the need for this work.

Note: This is tailored for a psychotherapy audience.

Download the Slides

Survivor-Centred Workshops Facilitation

Rarely are co-design workshops trained in trauma-informed methodologies. With our survivor-centred methods, we ensure that people who have experienced sexual abuse are the key decision makers in processes about them. We have also redesigned the workshop process to be more trauma-informed and 'joyful'.

Spotlight Project:
React. Network with the Centre of expertise on Child Sexual Abuse

In 2024, the Centre of expertise on Child Sexual Abuse published a knowledge review Child sexual abuse of African, Asian and Caribbean heritage children. Following from the recommendations of this report, Sophia, alongside two colleagues at the centre, were commissioned to facilitate and co-design the first UK network of professionals of colour working to support survivors of childhood sexual abuse from racialised backgrounds. The work is still underway, and the entire process including the aims, outcomes, regularly and structure of the group's meetings are decided by the participants themselves.

Sophia's contributions to and facilitation of the React. network have been pivotal in strengthening collaboration and connection between practitioners and academics focussing on addressing child sexual abuse within minoritised ethnic communities, uniting expertise to achieve shared goals. Sophia's strong communication skills and unwavering commitment have not only yielded tangible results for the Centre but were instrumental in establishing the React. network itself.

Milly Steele, Research & Evaluation Officer, CSA Centre

Lunchtime Talks

We deliver a range of talks (5-60 mins) focused on our ‘Serious Joy’ method of having difficult conversations. They don’t have to focus solely on childhood sexual abuse: we use this as a case study to explore our methodology and can design bespoke packages for your organisation. Example include "Looking at Intersectionality through shared trauma" "Dos and Don't for talking about Childhood Sexual Abuse" and "An introduction to Serious Joy".

Spotlight Project:
People Like Us x GOLIN

People Like Us is an award-winning not-for-profit that celebrates and supports media, marketing, and communications professionals from Black, Asian, Mixed Race and minoritised ethnic backgrounds. They do this by spotlighting talent through a series of 5 minute talks in design and marketing agencies. View Sophia's 5 Minute talk here as a taster of our content:

Advising Arts, Culture & Media sector on Survivor-Centred values

It's often the case that Arts, Culture and Media organisations own works by artists who are later found out to practice sexually abusive behaviour towards children (think of Eric Gill, R.Kelly, or Michael Jackson). How do we display these works in a way that centres survivors and encourages conversations on how to support survivors? How can we readdress the balance in how we engage with these works? Our bespoke values training can assist organisations to think through these challenges.

Spotlight Project:
Westminster University

We've been working with graphics and illustration BA students at the University of Westminster to teach them our ‘Serious Joy’ method of having difficult conversations, and how this might apply in the visual/ design industry.