Create and maintain safety

This page has information for people leading and taking part in engagement activities.

Find out how this guide was developed.

Watch video: consumers, carers, community and staff explore safety.

Check you've covered the essentials.

On this page

1. What we mean
2. Without safety
3. What to expect: consumers, carers and communities
   
4. What facilitators and meeting Chairs can do
5. What isn't okay
6. Resources to support you
7. References

What we mean

We* plan for physical, emotional, legal and cultural safety in engagement activities. We change things when there's not enough safety. No one should be harmed by engagement. There is no single definition of safety – we all have different safety needs. What are yours? What are the strengths and safety needs of the people you're working with?

Without safety

If people don’t feel safe, they won’t be comfortable sharing their thoughts and ideas. Not creating a safe environment can harm people’s well-being and make them uneasy. When people don’t feel safe, they may not want to participate, which limits diversity and accessibility.

What to expect: consumers, carers and communities

As consumers, carers and communities, you can expect to:

• have your safety needs taken seriously
• be physically, emotionally, legally and culturally safe
• be asked what you need to take part (you might not know, and that’s okay)
• have a heads-up before traumatic stories or material is shared
• help make a group agreement (what is and isn’t okay)
• have someone to talk to (this could be a staff member, peer support or free counselling)
• know your rights and your role
• know what to expect from the engagement activities you’re asked to take part in or lead
• help to create safety for others, which might mean learning about other people’s experiences.

What facilitators and meeting Chairs can do

Here are some actions you can take across the engagement process. We share a few resources below.

When planning:

• Use the Plan questions, Essentials checklist and Explore safety activity.
• Know what you think is safe may not be safe to others.
• Ask people what they need to feel safe enough – don’t assume.
• Plan for safety (yours, too). Here's a tool that could help.
• Talk to community organisations about what impacts the safety of the people you want to involve (for example, racism, transphobia, xenophobia, sensory overwhelm, bad places for sessions). Talk about what can be done.
• Pick venues where consumers, carers and communities are comfortable and can leave easily at any time.
• Offer a few choices of where, when and how people engage.
• Plan for support for all involved (this could be a staff member, peer support or free counselling).

When inviting and supporting people to be included:

• Talk with consumers, carers and communities before sessions about what they need.
• Give people permission to come as they are and look after themselves – for example, leave the room, turn cameras off, bring a support person or pet.
• Know people who haven’t felt safe may not be able to explain safety, or trust that their needs will be heard.
• Start talking about group agreements – don’t force consumers, carers and communities to relate to the NSW employee values ^[2] or the NSW Health Code of Conduct. ^[3]
• Consider a rough welcome video introducing yourself, the project and what people can expect. Here’s an example from the design process that created All of Us.^[4]

When doing and deciding:

• Start slow. Build relationships and trust.
• Make agreements on what is and isn’t okay.
• Offer choices about how people take part (for example, in groups or not, in activities or not).
• Agree if and how traumatic experiences will be shared (for example, headlines only, no detail).
• Take a trauma-informed approach to facilitation. ^{[5] [6] [7]}
• Understand and respect Aboriginal cultural protocols and ways of being. ^[8][9]
• Don’t share people's stories without their consent.
• Acknowledge what people say before moving on in a session.
• Make it normal for everyone to share their pronouns.^[10]
• Create a safe space away from the main activity (for example, a quiet room).
• Notice where safety is missing or getting less.
• Step in when something has happened to make people feel unsafe (staff too).

When there’s not enough safety:

• Be open to feedback (which could be about your facilitation).
• Thank people for their feedback, even if it’s hard to hear.
• Take a break if something happens in a session.
• Focus on understanding the impact of what happened and what can be done.
• Don’t be defensive.
• Apologise to the person and group. Don’t say things like ‘I/they didn’t mean it’ or ‘It wasn’t that bad’.
• Don’t make the person feel bad. Don’t make it their issue to solve or say they are too sensitive.
• Don’t push too hard when someone won’t accept your apology or they want to leave the activity/group.
• Get the trust back if you can.

When reviewing and learning:

• Ask for feedback – for example, about what helped people feel safe. Or, what made a lack of safety.
• Use what you hear to build your practice and improve next time.
• Contact participants after a session/meeting even if nothing bad happened. You could send a text, an email, make a phone call or something else. We know that in big groups we can’t check in with everyone one-on-one.

What’s not okay

What’s not okay is:

• saying ‘This is a safe space’ without doing things to make and keep the space safe
• only having physical safety (important, but not the only focus)
• excluding someone because you assume they can’t safely take part
• assuming everything’s okay because no one has said anything
• putting people on the spot in a group to say what they need to feel safe-enough
• making participants access clinical help when they feel unsafe.

Resources to support you

• (Staff) Build your skills: HETI Facilitation Accreditation Program
• All of Us: Plan questions
  Use the questions to thoughtfully plan your project or committee.
• All of Us: Essentials checklist
  Use the checklist to think about recognition, safety and access. Don’t use it as a replacement for talking with consumers, carers and communities.
• All of Us: Explore safety activity
  An activity to understand different understandings and needs for safety. Yours, staff, consumers, carers and communities.
• Mental Health Coordinating Council: Trauma-Informed Events Checklist and Policy and Protocol
• Mia Mingus: The Four Parts of Accountability and How to Give a Genuine Apology
• Agency for Clinical Innovation: Making Participation Safe - Content warning: mention of sexual assault

References

1. Consumer Leaders in Health Collective. (2022). Statement of Aims. Unpublished.
2. New South Wales Health. (n.d.). CORE values.
3. New South Wales Health. (2015). Policy Directive: NSW Health Code of Conduct.
4. Beyond Sticky Notes. (2022). Welcome to the Design Crew.
5. The Mental Health Complaints Commission. (n.d.). Lived Experience Checklist.
6. Agency for Clinical Innovation. (2019). A Guide to Build Co-design Capability.
7. NSW Health. (2023). Integrated Trauma-informed care framework: My story, my health, my future.
8. Agency for Clinical Innovation NSW. (n.d.). Working together with Aboriginal communities.
9. Emerging Minds. (n.d.). Principles to practice: Beginning to see the door
10. ACON (n.d.). Transhub: What are pronouns?

*We: Includes consumers, carers, staff, volunteers and anyone else working in local health districts (LHDs) and specialty health networks (SHNs), at the Ministry of Health, across the NSW pillar agencies and other NSW Health organisations. The use of this language is deliberate to show the collective effort required by all of us.