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Creating safety in groups

July 29, 2005 By Uncategorized

It seems often that I am asked by clients to create a safe space, by which I think they mean a safe emotional space (and I’m never REALLY sure what they mean). As a facilitator I bristle at this request for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that there is no way I can guarantee that a space will be safe. The problem has always been how to tell this to a client.

Yesterday, reading Christina Baldwin’s excellent “Calling the Circle” I got some good language around this question:

No group can prove itself “safe” by the definition of one member, it can only prove itself healthy and responsive to the needs of different people over time.”

That’s a brilliant encapsulation of what a functional group is doing.

I’m very much enjoying this book by the way, and I’ll try to post a few more thoughts triggered by her writing before I take off for Halifax next week. If you want to learn more about Christina’s work, visit her site, PeerSpirit.