Interactive Safe Sleep Booklet

How might we reimagine an informational trifold brochure to be more engaging and encouraging for new mothers to learn safe sleep strategies?

Get to know Charlie's Kids

this work was made possible by

Charlie's Kids Foundation

Co-Founders Dr. Samuel Hanke, MD and Maura Hanke; Natasha Shull, Executive Director

my role

Project Lead (Solo Contract)
UX Researcher
Visual Designer

SKILLS

Conducting stakeholder interviews
Secondary research and synthesis
Graphic design for print collateral
Systems mapping

background

Safe Sleep is Hard. Your Baby is Worth It.

Charlie's Kids gives parents, caregivers, and safe sleep partners life-saving tools to ensure every infant wakes up from every sleep. The nonprofit was created in honor of the founders' son, Charlie, who passed away in infancy from unsafe sleep.

Their executive team approached me for help understanding the learning journey of expecting and new parents. I facilitated a 90-minute workshop to identify pathways between stakeholders, communication channels, and important information gaps. We weighed these learnings against Charlie's Kids' available resources to prioritize refreshing certain materials, and realized that some of the greatest opportunities to reach more parents lied in updating their printed brochure.

primary & secondary research

Learning from Moms

1-hour interviews with moms aged 26-43

1-hour interviews with individuals from partner organizations

Focus group participants; moms aged 20–43

I interviewed moms to understand how they first learned about safe sleep, what they did in practice, and what they wished they had known or had access to. I also spoke with representatives from partner organizations about how they used safe sleep materials to educate the populations they served, and what they needed in order to reach people more effectively.

At this point, I faced a critical gap in my research: my interview population consisted of white, married women who lived with their partner in a home that they owned. This is not representative of the families who are most at risk of experiencing an unsafe sleep-related death. With the help of a community center in a predominantly Black neighborhood of Cincinnati, I hosted a focus group luncheon to speak with mothers and grandmothers who had raised between one and five children. They provided feedback about what types of information and resources they would actually use at home, and echoed the same sentiment I had heard before: I need support, but I don't know how to ask for help.

give the people what they want

Creating the New Booklet

This booklet is educational, encouraging, and personalized. It is an artifact that a mom can take anywhere, with reminders that she is strong and capable, and deserving of rest and self-love.

Two double-sided bookmarks can be cut away from the interior pages, with space to write baby's name and their safe sleep location. These can be shared with babysitters, grandparents, friends, and other caretakers. Other pages offer fill-in-the-blank support system references, and QR codes to access motivating videos that feel like talking to a friend.

The back cover is a love letter from baby to mom. Writing from this perspective further drives the idea that while safe sleep can feel hard, it is all worth it to keep baby safe and healthy.

credibility

Presenting at PrevCon 2025

PrevCon, hosted by Safe Kids Worldwide, is one of the largest gatherings of safety professionals in the world dedicated solely to the field of childhood injury prevention. I was invited to speak at a panel session titled Designing for Families: A Human-Centered Approach to Safe Sleep Education.

Our table at the PrevCon expo. Spot the purple booklets I designed — guests were excited to take them home!

Speaking about the importance of human centered design in creating effective solutions to safety problems.

Celebrating with the Charlie's Kids team. We were overjoyed to share our work with other organizations!

testimonial

Team Gratitude

We said "it takes a village" countless times during this project. In the traditional sense, we saw again and again that moms need the support of their found and family communities to navigate this new period of life. We also were reminded that there needs to be much more discourse on infant safe sleep on a broader societal level. Cultural changes, like the advent of seatbelt laws and accompanying educational campaigns, are achievable through increased conversation and active listening. These Charlie's Kids materials aim to combat misinformation through encouraging and empowering reminders — never by shame.

These booklets are now available to order on the Charlie's Kids website. Check them out below!

Access Materials

"Claire was with us at the conference to co-present the new materials, and she truly knocked it out of the park! Her incredible Human Centered Design knowledge was evident and started a wave of conversation about how else HCD might be used within the safe sleep space. We can't wait to see what might develop from this. Claire's talents and ideas could change the outcome for so many babies! We are so grateful for her work, but also for her passion and genuine investment in the mission of Charlie's Kids.

Her professionalism and expertise resulted in a final product that is not just beautiful and highly usable, but a genuine game-changer for saving lives. During the presentation, she handled the questions and discussion with incredible poise, reinforcing her complete mastery of the HCD process and the potential impact of the booklets.

The booklets were released into the wild for the first time last week and the response was truly amazing. The boots on the ground workers were thrilled to have a new tool to engage and empower mom during the early stages of motherhood. People were excited about the value and future impact these might have. Hearing Claire describe the careful process to get to the final product was an incredible asset to validate the material.

Claire has been incredible to work with and we are so grateful for the energy and talent she dedicated to this critical initiative. We were lucky to have her on this project!"

– Maura Hanke, Charlie's Mom & Co-Founder of Charlie's Kids, October 2025.