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.
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?
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.
As consumers, carers and communities, you can expect to:
Here are some actions you can take across the engagement process. We share a few resources below.
When planning:
When inviting and supporting people to be included:
When doing and deciding:
When there’s not enough safety:
When reviewing and learning:
What’s not okay is:
*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.