Turning Lived Experience into Scalable Learning - transcend australia
SOcial Impact Advisory & Strategy • TRAINING & CAPACITY BUILDING • FACILITATION
The Challenge
Transcend Australia, a national not-for-profit supporting transgender, gender diverse and non-binary young people and their families, sought to professionalise and scale its training offer. The organisation had strong, values-driven content built from lived experience - but needed a structured, evidence-based framework that could deliver impact at scale while sustaining Transcend’s fee-for-service model.
The challenge was to transform deeply personal, community-rooted knowledge into a cohesive, learner-centred training product - one that felt as compassionate and inclusive as Transcend’s mission, yet robust enough to serve professional and organisational audiences and to use lived experiences as foundations while minimising the load carried by the facilitator.
The Task
Amplifier Collective was engaged to undertake a competitor analysis, design and develop a modular training package and supporting resources that would:
Strengthen Transcend’s fee-for-service training offer,
Build internal capacity for content delivery, and
Create scalable, accessible learning products for diverse audiences.
To complement this work, Amplifier partnered with Michael Burville, Senior Learning Designer at the University of Melbourne, ensuring every stage of development was underpinned by action oriented inclusive best practice, pedagogy and accessibility.
Our Approach
Following the trusted ADDIE model (Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation, Evaluation), Amplifier applied a phased co-design process combining facilitation, instructional design and storytelling.
Analysis and Inception - Facilitated in-person inception and research workshops to explore Transcend’s current training content, business model and audience needs, including mapping peer offerings and identifying success benchmarks.
Co-design and Content Development - Delivered a 2.5-hour collaborative session with Transcend’s team and subject matter experts to shape learning outcomes, structure and sequencing. The process ensured content was evidence-informed, trauma-aware and adaptable for multiple delivery modes.
Design and Development - Produced detailed module outlines, storyboards and facilitator resources, translating Transcend’s lived-experience content into accessible, interactive learning journeys and activities.
Support for Implementation and Evaluation - Created tools and guidance to support Transcend’s future delivery, including facilitator guides, activity templates and evaluation frameworks.
The resulting framework grounded empathy in structure - embedding care, reflection and accessibility across all learner touch-points.
The Result
The training package, With You on the Journey, provides a comprehensive, trauma-informed training suite that supports professionals and educators to engage confidently with gender diversity.
Deliverables included:
A competitor analysis exploring opportunities for generating revenue to fund their under resourced services.
An online ‘primer’ or pre-training module that encouraged participants to begin to examine their values and assumptions.
A training package with structured training modules ready for online and face-to-face delivery.
A facilitator guide and training manual with embedded safety, accessibility and reflection activities.
Digital learning assets and exercises (media literacy resources, scenarios, reflection prompts) for interactive delivery.
A repeatable model for training design and delivery, strengthening Transcend’s long-term business sustainability.
The materials combine warmth and rigour - preserving Transcend’s authentic voice while ensuring pedagogical quality and scalability. Through co-design and inclusive design expertise, Amplifier helped Transcend move from passion to product: creating training that is as strategic and sustainable as it is empathetic and transformative.