All of us: Engaging consumers, carers and communities across NSW Health [mock-up]
Core Ingredient: Create and maintain safety
We create physical, emotional, legal and cultural safety. We make sure everyone knows what to expect and what is and isn’t okay. We make changes when there’s a lack of safety. Here’s information and tools to put safety into practice.
As a consumers, carers or community members we want to make sure:
Your experiences and needs are taken seriously
You are asked about what safety means to you (which you may not be able to explain and that’s okay - we’ve developed a few tools to help)
You are physically, emotionally, legally and culturally safe
You see and contribute to a code of conduct (what is and isn’t okay)
You have a safe person to turn to, access to peer support as well as free counselling if you need it
You know about your rights, your role and what to expect from the activities you’re asked to take part in or lead
You help to create safety for others, which might mean using different language.
What happens without safety
If people don’t feel safe, they can’t take part. Or they may hold back their thoughts and ideas. If facilitators and others involved don’t create safety, we risk traumatising or re-traumatising people. Failing to create safety often means marginalised people continue to be left out. That decreases diversity and does not achieve inclusion.
What safety isn’t ❌
Facilitators saying this is ‘this is a safe space’ without taking actions to make and keep the space safe
Having only physical safety or work health and safety (also important, but not our only focus)
Excluding someone because we assume they can’t safely take part
Shifting all the responsibility to individuals to advocate for their own safety
Assuming people need clinical help when they feel unsafe
Tools to support you 🧰
While there’s lots of talk of ‘creating a safe space’ there’s very little on how.
We’ve created a few tools to support you - and we share a few existing tools and examples below.
Safety Planning Tools
Stories
Code of Conduct examples
Planning what you do and don’t want to discuss
Help and advice for putting safety into practice 🛟
If you’re leading, supporting or curious about engagement, here are some actions you can take:
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Talk to community organisations about what you need to do to engage safely (and, consider co-facilitating)
Ensure physical safety by picking venues where consumers are comfortable, where gender-neutral bathrooms are available and where consumer can easily leave at any time
Plan for peer support and free mental health support
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Connect with consumers, carers and community members one-to-one before working together to understand what people might need to feel safe. And, recognise that people who haven’t felt safe may not be able to explain it, or may not trust that their needs will be listened to.
Give people permission to come as they are and look after themselves (for example, leave the room, turn cameras off, bring a support person)
Share a Code of Conduct and consider a welcome video introducing yourself, the project and what people can expect. -
Starting the first meeting slowly, focusing on the relationship
Agreeing how traumatic experiences will be shared (e.g. headlines only, not detail)
Making sure that people's stories belong to them and are not misappropriated by others, without consentCreating a safe space away from the main activity (e.g. a quiet room separate from a large forum)
Courageous facilitation - calling people in/out when they harm or minimise others. Focusing on the safety of marginalised people over the comfort of privileged people.
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To add
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Think about how to end meetings and sessions that help people wind down and leave safely (e.g. making time, check-out, reflecting)
Check in with people after a session
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Buddy up with people with more experience (with a community, with facilitation)
Schedule down-time after a big session and peer or professional supervision
