About Us

At Lessons Learned Simulations and Training, we believe that learning is a process.

What Do We Do? LLST offers both open-access training courses and custom-designed on-demand training modules, with a methodological emphasis on interactive tabletop simulations and activities. Trainings vary in style, content, and duration, and can be designed to fit your specific needs.

Via detailed briefings and dynamic logic models, students learn to analyse events the way that different groups of affected people do, to better ensure that humanitarian response efforts are built on common goals.

What Will You Learn? LLST simulations offer an opportunity for participants to:

  • Engage with peers and colleagues in a hands-on, interactive learning experience
  • Practice real-time strategizing and problem-solving
  • Focus on teamwork and relationship building
  • Test ideas, interventions, and responses in a safe environment
  • Engage with new perspectives and viewpoints

Learn more about the benefits of the LLST simulation-centered approach to humanitarian training.

Who is this For? By highlighting immersive learning our trainings promote independent thinking, critical engagement with humanitarian norms and assumptions, problem-solving skills, and nuanced understandings of the political and social dynamics of humanitarian relief efforts. We help trainees better understand the complex and intersecting motivation of various stakeholders, including various aid actors, host governments and their constituents, local CBOs, donors, and—most importantly—the “beneficiaries” whom we serve. Whether you’re just starting out or an established sector expert, LLST can help you reach your humanitarian training goals  by providing the space to experiment in a consequence-free environment and help you break out of your silo in order to see your work from another point of view.

Who Are We?

Founder, director, and course designer and instructor Matthew Stevens has worked with refugees and migrants globally since 2008, from downtown Cairo to the Peruvian Amazon. Most recently, he served as Country Director for an INGO in Amman, Jordan, delivering online higher education to displaced youth.

As the editor for LLST, Jessica Roberts ensures the consistent quality and clarity of written documents, and she also provides research, writing, and workshop facilitation support. She completed her PhD in English with a research focus on the published life narratives of former child soldiers.

As a project assistant, Ben Stevens helps to maintain the LLST blog and website, while also assisting on the design and facilitation of many LLST simulations. Outside of working with LLST, Ben’s experience is in professional theatre, educational interpretation, and the gaming industry.

We are humanitarian aid workers, trained in critical doctrines, who have seen the best and the worst of humanitarianism—often in the same place. 

How Do I Get in Touch? Glad you asked! Write us at info@llst.ca for more information or a quote.

Who Have We Worked With?

Who Have We Presented With?

What Are People Saying?

“I attended the 2 day workshop “The Day My Life Froze: Urban Refugees in the Humanitarian System” in Ottawa in July. The simulation was excellent - I think that people from all different backgrounds - whether new to humanitarian and development work, or whether experts in the field - can learn from this experience”.
Elizabeth Dyke
PhD, Health and Social Development Consultant
“I really enjoyed the gameplay even though it was 'confusing', 'frustrating' and a bit 'stressful' but that’s exactly what I’d say it should have been – to give the players just a little taste of what refugees experience. I thought the game design was brilliant in that it very cleverly “layered in” so many important aspects of what urban refugees would face.
Anon. Defense Analyst
Government of Canada