SAFE learning design framework
A framework for ethical learning design when working with sensitive content.
Instructional designers working with sensitive content carry an ethical responsibility our field has not yet formalised. The SAFE Framework offers five principles — drawn from over a decade of frontline practice — to help designers build learning that informs whilst minimising harm.
S — Safety first
Learner wellbeing before organisational outcomes.
The learner's psychological wellbeing is the primary design consideration — before evaluation metrics, completion rates, or client preferences. Content warnings must be honest and specific. Opt-out pathways must not disadvantage the learner. Scenario consequences must be proportionate to the learning goal.
A — Agency by design
Learner choice and control, not prescriptive experiences.
Trauma and marginalisation affect a person's sense of control. Learning design that removes all learner agency replicates that dynamic and risks retraumatisation. Agency means asking: can the learner pause? Can they skip and return? Do they know what's coming? In gamified or scenario-based design, it means consequences that feel instructive rather than punitive.
F — Fidelity with care
Realism serves learning rather than fostering tension.
Realism in scenario design is a means to an end — the end being learning transfer, not authenticity for its own sake. The test: does this distressing detail serve a specific learning objective? If it serves atmosphere rather than objective, it should be reconsidered. The line is between recreating the gravity of a real situation and recreating the emotional weight of trauma.
E — Expertise in the room
Genuine co-design, not tokenistic consultation.
Consultation ensures stakeholders are being heard. Co-design necessitates that collaborators are listened to. Community and practitioner review is a co-design requirement — not a QA step — with equal influence over content design. When working with people with lived experience, designers must set clear expectations about how those experiences will be represented, and reaffirm continued consent throughout the process.
Upon completion
Signposting support, built-in self-care.
Most learning ends with a knowledge check and a certificate. For sensitive content, this is a design failure. Every learning artefact must conclude with visible signposting to support resources, self-care prompts for learners who may have been personally affected, and — where relevant — guidance for managers on follow-up conversations.
who it's for
The SAFE Framework is designed for instructional designers, learning experience designers, and L&D consultants who are commissioned to build training in sensitive content areas — and who want a structured, ethical approach to that work.
It applies wherever the cost of poor design is borne by the learner, not the designer. That includes:
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Domestic and family violence response
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First Nations cultural safety and community contexts
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Mental health, suicide prevention, and non-suicidal self-injury
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Child protection and out-of-home care
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Sexual harassment, workplace bullying, and DEI compliance
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Financial hardship and vulnerability
download resource
The SAFE Framework is available as a free PDF — the framework principles and a self-assessment checklist your team can use before publishing any sensitive content module.
Free to share with attribution. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).
Aneeta Menon, Wordology © 2026
working in this space?
The SAFE Framework is a starting point, not a final word. If you're an instructional designer, L&D consultant, or commissioning organisation working with sensitive content, we welcome the conversation. Get in touch.
about aneeta
Aneeta is a six-time LearnX Platinum award winner, recognised for excellence in eLearning audio design, learning technology, and gamification. She is a 2017 Walkley Foundation Our Watch Award finalist for community media work on violence against women, and a White Ribbon Workplace Accreditation training provider.
Her project experience includes the Attorney General's Department, Australian Research Council, NSW State Government, Victoria Government, ACT Health Services, Westpac Group, Diversity Arts Australia, Ramsay Healthcare, and M180 Out of Home Care.