Administrative Staff Safety & Support Training

Format

Instructor-led training with comprehensive facilitator guide and participant materials

My Role

Lead Instructional Designer, Scenario Writer, Facilitator Guide Developer

Challenge

Administrative staff in field offices were placed in high-stakes situations without adequate training or support. Many were performing duties far beyond their job descriptions, managing hostile visitors, supporting clients in crisis, and navigating confidentiality dilemmas, yet had received little to no formal onboarding.

Leadership requested broadly applicable training for all administrative staff, while the Administrative Advisory Council emphasized urgent needs specific to front office realities. The challenge was designing content that honored the most vulnerable roles while remaining accessible to staff across varied office configurations.

My Solution

I advocated for administrative staff by ensuring their voices shaped the training design. Working closely with the Advisory Council, I surfaced real workplace challenges and designed content that validated their experiences and equipped them with practical strategies for managing difficult situations.

Rather than diluting the training to fit a generic audience, I helped leadership recognize the value of centering the most vulnerable roles, knowing that even staff who don't regularly work the front desk benefit from understanding its complexity and supporting their colleagues.

The training addressed workplace safety, confidentiality boundaries, de-escalation strategies, and self-care, structured to balance policy requirements with emotional realism.

Sample from the learner manual on self-care and well-being

My Process

Stakeholder Collaboration & Needs Assessment
I met with a workgroup of administrative staff and their advocates to gather real-world challenges and emotional context. These conversations shaped the training objectives and ensured content addressed actual workplace realities, not assumptions.

Scenario Development
I authored realistic scenarios that reflected the complexity of front office roles and the risks staff faced. Each scenario included discussion prompts and reflection questions to support peer learning and practical application.

Instructional Flow Design
I structured the training to balance policy guidance with emotional intelligence, incorporating boundary-setting strategies and de-escalation techniques. Content was designed for relevance across office configurations while centering front desk realities.

Facilitator Guide Development
I created a comprehensive, accessible facilitator guide and accompanying PowerPoint presentation to support consistent delivery across offices with varying resources and staffing models. The guide included facilitation notes, timing recommendations, and adaptations for different group sizes, while the presentation provided visual support and key talking points for trainers.

Trauma-Informed Framing
I used inclusive language and emotionally intelligent design to ensure psychological safety and learner respect, acknowledging the emotional weight of the work these professionals do.

Scenarios from a small group activity where learners discuss how they would handle each situation. The light gray text provides suggested answers to assist the facilitators and is removed from the learner's manuals.

Outcome

The training was adopted for statewide use and praised for its relevance, empathy, and clarity. After piloting in October 2023, it was delivered eight additional times over 16 months, with the most recent session in February 2025.

Learners appreciated the empathetic framing, practical strategies, and emphasis on self-care. They valued the opportunity to understand how front office operations vary across locations—a strength of cross-office training that fosters peer support and shared problem-solving.

The training filled a long-standing gap in onboarding and helped elevate the role of administrative professionals within the organization.

Skills Demonstrated

Stakeholder advocacy, needs assessment, scenario-based learning design, facilitator guide development, presentation design, trauma-informed design, adult learning theory, instructional flow design, Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, Adobe Acrobat

What I Learned

This project reinforced my belief that instructional design can be a tool for equity and systemic change. Advocating for an often-overlooked group of professionals and translating their lived experiences into actionable training was deeply meaningful work.

Navigating the tension between leadership priorities and frontline needs challenged me to design with nuance, empathy, and strategic clarity. The experience strengthened my ability to conduct stakeholder needs assessments, facilitate difficult conversations, and design content that honors learners' realities while meeting organizational objectives.

Though the manual's visual design reflects legacy formatting constraints, the instructional strategy and scenario depth remain strong. This project sparked my interest in modernizing visual standards and exploring contemporary design tools for layout and engagement.

This image shows the full two-page layout of the training manual, with the facilitator guide on the left and the corresponding learner manual page on the right. The activity is designed to help administrative staff prepare for the stressful experience of being recorded in the workplace. It includes a real YouTube clip of such an encounter, prompting discussion around emotional regulation, safety, and professional boundaries.