Safer Practice for Belonging
- Sarah Macdonald
- Sep 25, 2024
- 5 min read
Next week I’m heading down to Ōtaki for a 5-day residential training Facilitating with Confidence and Heart. It’s an experiential workshop for facilitators and group workers, exploring trauma-confident facilitation—how we stay present and purposeful when emotions, disruption, or collective and individual trauma show up in the room.
What drew me in is the very practical focus: the nervous system and triggers, resonant language and body awareness, attachment and group dynamics, and—crucially—authority, power and presence. I’m hoping to deepen my own resilience and widen my “window of welcome” for intensity, so I can keep showing up with clarity and care.
Reading the training outline also brought me back to a blog I wrote some time ago. I’ve rewritten it now with more nuance: we can’t honestly promise “safe spaces,” but we can commit to safer practice for belonging—power-aware, trauma-informed facilitation with real pathways for consent, accountability, and repair.
Safer practice for belonging: power-aware, trauma-informed facilitation
When we talk about Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (JEDI/DEI), the intention is usually to create fairer, more inclusive environments. And yet, those acronyms can feel charged or even triggering in some workplaces—arts, corporate, and the social sector alike. Sometimes it’s because people have lived through “tick-box” initiatives. Sometimes it’s because naming identity and power can touch histories of harm. Often it’s simply because the nervous system is involved, not just ideas.
So in my work I seek to use a different frame:
Safer practice for belonging: power-aware, trauma-informed facilitation.
This frame holds a key truth with humility: we can’t promise “safe spaces.” Safety is subjective and shaped by lived experience, identity, history, and power. But we can commit to building conditions that reduce harm and increase participation—through transparency, consent and choice, accessibility, and real pathways for feedback and repair.
As a Pākehā New Zealander who is always working on positioning myself as tangata Tiriti, I also hold that “safety” in Aotearoa is never neutral. It sits inside histories of colonisation and ongoing inequities. That makes power-awareness, accountability, and ongoing learning essential—not optional.
To ground this in a widely used, practical approach, I lean on the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) framework: Concept of Trauma and Guidance for a Trauma-Informed Approach, which offers the 4 R’s and six guiding principles for organisations and systems.
Understanding trauma in the context of belonging at work
SAMHSA describes trauma as experiences that are perceived as physically or emotionally harmful (or life-threatening) and that have lasting adverse effects on wellbeing and functioning.
In workplaces and organisations, trauma isn’t only “personal history.” It can also be shaped by systems and culture, including:
Historical and systemic trauma (e.g., racism, colonisation, intergenerational harm)
Microaggressions—everyday slights, exclusions, or “small” comments that accumulate as harm
Marginalisation by design—spaces built around a “default” person, where others must constantly translate, mask, or adapt to belong
Trauma can be held collectively too. Whole communities can carry the weight of systemic injustice. Naming this isn’t about making workplaces “clinical.” It’s about becoming more realistic—and therefore more compassionate and effective—about what people carry, and what it takes to create conditions where people can genuinely participate.
The 4 R’s: a practical map for organisations
SAMHSA describes a trauma-informed approach as one that:
Realises the widespread impact of trauma and pathways for recovery
Recognises the signs and impacts of trauma in people and systems
Responds by integrating this knowledge into policies, procedures, and practice
Resists re-traumatisation—actively reducing practices that repeat harm
This is powerful for belonging work because it helps us move beyond “good intentions” into the question: What are we designing for—and what are we accidentally repeating?
In many organisations, people aren’t reacting only to what’s happening today. They’re reacting to patterns they’ve lived: being dismissed, punished for naming impact, tokenised, or expected to carry the emotional labour of “keeping the peace.”
The six trauma-informed principles—and how they strengthen belonging
SAMHSA’s six principles give us a concrete foundation for safer practice.
1) Safety (held with humility)
Rather than claiming a space is safe, we design for safer participation:
clear agreements and boundaries
“pass” and “step out” as normal options
accessible ways to raise concerns (not only in public)
timely, calm response when harm occurs (without minimising)
A sentence I find helpful is:
“I can’t guarantee this will feel safe for everyone. I can commit to being transparent about power, listening when impact is named, and doing repair.”
2) Trustworthiness and transparency
Trust grows through follow-through, not slogans:
clear decision-making (who decides what, and how)
clear expectations (including confidentiality and its limits)
clear accountability (what happens when harm is raised)
3) Peer support
Belonging strengthens when people aren’t alone:
mentoring, buddy systems, affinity spaces
reflective practice groups or supervision
support structures that don’t rely on marginalised staff “holding everything”
4) Collaboration and mutuality
Power-aware practice reduces “us and them” dynamics:
co-design where possible
shared influence (not just “consultation”)
valuing lived experience as expertise (and resourcing it appropriately)
5) Empowerment, voice, and choice
Agency is protective for the nervous system:
multiple ways to engage (speaking, writing, small groups, quiet reflection)
choice-based participation (no forced disclosure)
leadership pathways for underrepresented groups
not requiring marginalised people to educate others to be believed
6) Cultural, historical, and gender awareness
This principle invites us to design with context—not one-size-fits-all. It also asks:
Whose norms define “professional”, “calm”, or “appropriate emotion” here?
Who is expected to adapt—and at what cost?
What histories are present in the room (including colonisation, migration, disability, gendered harm)?
Power dynamics and intersectionality: where the work becomes real
Both trauma-informed practice and belonging work are ultimately about power—who has it, how it’s used, and whose needs are treated as normal.
Intersectionality matters because people experience overlapping forms of oppression.
For example, a neurodivergent woman of colour may face racialised and gendered harm and pressure to mask how her brain works—compounding stress and exclusion. A trauma-informed approach helps us see this as a design and systems issue, not an individual “resilience” problem.
Holding this in real bodies: embodied and nature-based facilitation
One reason belonging conversations can spiral is that we try to do them “neck-up”—debating values while bodies are bracing underneath. Trauma-informed facilitation assumes the nervous system is part of the room.
These practices are not about performance or disclosure. They are invitational: people can join, adapt, or opt out.
Embodied practices (workplace-friendly)
Arrival (90 seconds): feel your feet, soften jaw/shoulders, one slower breath
Orienting: let your eyes land on three neutral objects; notice one sound
Micro-movement breaks: stretch, shake out hands, brief reset every 45–60 minutes
Walk-and-talk pairs: reduces intensity, supports regulation, increases connection
Nature-based options (when accessible and appropriate)
Noticing walk with a gentle prompt (5–10 minutes)
Sit-spot reflection (optional share; no pressure)
Object metaphor (leaf/stone): “What does this represent about how I’m arriving today?”
Important nuance: nature isn’t automatically safe or accessible for everyone. Always offer alternatives and avoid romanticising “the outdoors” as universally resourcing.
From inclusion to repair: what we’re committing to
Trauma-informed belonging isn’t a promise that harm won’t happen. It’s a commitment that:
power will be named and handled with care
consent and choice will be built into participation
accessibility will be designed in—not bolted on
accountability will be clear
repair will be real
Not perfect spaces. But more honest, more responsive, more human spaces—where people can belong without shrinking.
Further reading
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