POLICY AND PROCEDURE MANUAL POLICY NUMBER: 10.1 NAME OF POLICY: Cultural Safety POLICY CATEGORY: Equity DATE ADOPTED: DATE TO BE REVIEWED: ANNUALLY
POLICY
Cultural Safety is the endorsed philosophy of the Chetwynd Community Arts Council for ensuring all team, board, contractors, members, and others with whom we interact feel safe, respected and valued for our diversity.
Scope
All team and board members are asked to familiarize themselves with the principle components and expectations implicit in this policy.
Definition
Cultural safety is a philosophy and a way of operating that ensures all individuals and groups are treated with regard to their unique cultural needs and differences. It assumes the right to difference and calls for interactions which recognize and respect the cultural identities of others, and safely meet their needs, expectations and rights. Culture can be constructed to relate to more than ethnicity alone; - it may be linked to socio-economic status, religion, gender, age, sexuality or disability.
It is the right of all individuals to expect culturally safe engagement in the course of their work. To this end, the Chetwynd Community Arts Council, team and board of the Chetwynd Community Arts Council will strive to demonstrate and facilitate Cultural Safety in their professional encounters through:
● Reflecting on one’s own culture, attitudes and beliefs about ‘others’, and its potential impact on others
● Acknowledging power relationships that are a result of cultural privilege and acting to ensure equitable and respectful engagement
● Ensuring clear, value free, open and respectful dialogue; avoiding use of language that may be colonizing or ‘othering’ in nature (the tendency to view one’s own cultural group as the ‘norm’)
● Being prepared to engage with others in a two-way dialogue where knowledge is shared
● Upholding the right to differing world and other views.
Responsibilities
The Chetwynd Community Arts Council is responsible for:
● Providing information on Cultural Safety to all team and board members
● Taking steps to ensure consistent application of this policy
● Taking steps to investigate allegations or complaints of breaches of this policy (see Anti-Harassment/Anti-Bullying/Anti-Discrimination policy)
Team and Board are responsible for:
● Being aware of policies and procedures in relation to Cultural Safety
● Adhering to the Peace Liard Regional Arts Council Basis of Unity and Equity Policies, have a foundational understanding of Cultural Safety, and participate in ongoing learning;
● Refraining from culturally unsafe practices and interactions, and where safe to do so, challenging potentially unsafe practices and interactions (see Anti-Harassment/Anti-Bullying/Anti-Discrimination policy)
● Conducting themselves in a culturally safe manner
