Cultivating Care: Create a Safe and Open Culture
Creating a safe and open organizational culture through trauma-informed best practices is essential in providing good care to your staff, clients, and those you serve in your organization.
Here are five strategies to help you get started:
1. Create a safety culture: Establish a safe physical environment for employees, clients, and customers by implementing protocols that drive awareness of potentially unsafe environments physically and emotionally, educating your team on de-escalating potential conflicts, and creating a safe space for all.
2. Foster trustworthiness: Build trust between management and staff by communicating openly and encouraging employee feedback. Establish clear policies and procedures that everyone can follow, such as prohibiting discrimination or harassment in the workplace.
3. Offer choices: Give employees autonomy in their work by allowing them to have a preference on the projects they want to work on or the freedom to take breaks when needed. Ensure that all decisions are made collaboratively with input from everyone at the table.
4. Respect mental health issues: Acknowledge that someoneβs mental health issues, substance abuse, or physical health concerns may stem from βwhat has happened to themβ instead of βsomething wrong with them.β When appropriate, show empathy and understanding while connecting individuals with resources like counseling or support groups.
5. Hire a trauma-informed workforce: Invest in hiring a workforce knowledgeable about trauma-informed care practices that can create a safe physical, social, and emotional environment for everyone in the office. Provide training on topics like cultural competency or self-care so that employees are better equipped to provide compassionate care and support to those around them.
By incorporating these five strategies into your office culture, you can create an atmosphere of safety, trustworthiness, choice, respect for individual differences, and staff wellness for everyone involved!
Every Tuesday through April, I'll share insight on how to help develop an inclusive, inspiring work environment. Follow Kutoa Project's blog to stay up-to-date and learn how to cultivate a culture of care.
For those interested in reading along, please visit https://www.kutoaproject.org/blog.