CDSS Community Culture & Safety Toolkit

The CDSS Community Culture and Safety Task Group (CCSTG) aims to support local communities in their efforts to provide a safe environment for music, song, and dance events. We are working to provide advice and resources that will help organizers develop the policies, procedures, and supporting documents needed to understand and facilitate safety in their communities.

CDSS is not prescriptive in regard to what your community ‘should be doing.’ We recognize and value the range of living traditions practiced by our communities.

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Building a safe and welcoming event space includes providing for everyone’s physical, mental, and emotional well-being. This can include addressing a range of problems, from feelings of discomfort to perceived discrimination to actual bodily harm. Organizers can develop procedures to handle problems along this spectrum.

Communities should consider having the following set of documents to facilitate safety in its many nuances. We hope these tools will help you develop your own set of safety documents. This toolkit is intended for you to pull out and adapt the language and policies that work for your community.

Part I: Statement of Community Values

This is where you describe the environment you strive to create.
Your values are the justification for policies and actions that uphold them.
This is in addition to mission and vision statements, as part of your organizing documents.

• Creating Community Values – Overview
• Models of governance or decision-making
• Examples of values statements from other communities

Part II: Code of Conduct

This document codifies behavioral expectations, specifies what behavior will not be tolerated, and outlines what the consequences will be for infractions.

This is a policy document (not by-laws), based on community values.

• Brief overview, with links to a comprehensive guide from an outside consulting firm, and links to examples from a few dance communities.
• Check the CDSS Resource Portal for more resources on community safety and etiquette.

Part III: Courtesy and Etiquette Guidelines (aka Shaping Culture)

Tips and guidance (preferably in DO rather than “don’t” language) that help prevent offenses from occurring.

• This could be a family of pieces:
  • General tips
  • Nuances on elitism vs. self-protection (making the dance welcoming and safe); booking ahead; when it’s OK to say no
  • Requesting, giving, and receiving feedback to/from others

• Writing Template
• Check the Resource Portal for more ideas.

Part IV: Complaint Procedures

These outline the ways and means of handling complaints and infractions.

Whom to complain to; who follows up; how complaints are handled; timeliness of response; confidentiality; due process; documentation; legal concerns; levels of severity; pathways for improvement and pathways for ultimate removal.

• The best guide we have found on this topic is How to Respond to Code of Conduct Reports, by Valerie Aurora and Mary Gardiner, available for free from Frameshift Consulting. This guide covers what to include and what to leave out as well as guidance for how to respond to infractions.
• In addition, the following examples provide sample language you can use, in the dance context. Local organizers can adopt these procedures for their own policies, or adapt them as needed. An additional writing template would be duplicative, so we simply encourage you to review these examples and cite them as a source as you craft your own complaint procedures:
  • BIDA “How We Can Help”
  • Old Farmer’s Ball Complaint Procedures
  • Policy for Dealing with Complaints of Inappropriate Behavior
  • Taking a Safety Report
  • Philadelphia Area Traditional Music and Dance Policy and Procedures for Dealing With Complaints of Inappropriate Behavior

Part V: Physical Space: The Venue

• This serves as a checklist of things to consider and manage, such as trip hazards, first aid, emergency medical
  procedures, ADA accessibility, decibel levels, etc.
  • Venue safety checklist

 

Additional resources on the CDSS Resource Portal: If your community has any resources related to this topic, please share with resources@cdss.org

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Working Definitions

As we worked, we realized that we needed some working definitions for the concepts we were grappling with.

Safety

Freedom from physical, mental, emotional, or sexual harm, or fear of such harm, in one’s immediate environment.

Respect

Due regard for the feelings, wishes, rights, needs, boundaries, or traditions of others.

Inclusion

Welcoming all individuals regardless of any personal characteristics, such as race, ethnicity, religion, gender or gender identity, sexual orientation, age, physical abilities, body shape, financial means, education, or political views.

Courtesy

Behavior and manners that demonstrate consideration and respect for others, such as saying “please,” “excuse me,” asking for consent, etc.

Courtesy includes sensitivity to and accommodation of individual and cultural differences. It is a (hoped for) constant in general society, as in the Platinum Rule.

Etiquette

The set of rules and behavioral expectations specific to a particular group. These are expectations that go beyond simple courtesy, e.g., joining a line of dancers at the bottom of the set, or norms for finding a partner.

Safety is the ultimate goal. Respect and Inclusion are the underlying “what” that help people feel emotionally safe. Courtesy and Etiquette are the “how”—how to convey respect and inclusion.