Safer space
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As youth workers, we can build peace in our community by supporting young people, our colleagues and ourselves to overcome stereotypical thinking, misperceptions and discriminatory attitudes and behaviours. This means dealing with conflicts when they occur as safely as possible. As well as reacting to occurring conflicts, we can do our best to prevent conflicts before they arise. Tensions are easier to overcome before they get too heated between individuals or groups of young people. We can support communication by creating and maintaining safer spaces. Creating safer spaces is an important tool to tackle discrimination. Safer spaces go beyond our physical spaces – when we design safer spaces, we strive to create an environment of care, connection, and active engagement.
A safer space is a supportive, non-threatening environment that encourages open-mindedness, respect, a willingness to learn from others, as well as physical and mental safety. A safer space is also referred to as a methodology for creating non-threatening and respectful environments.
In a safer space, we are as aware as possible of the power structures that affect our everyday lives. This means being conscious of the power dynamics, backgrounds, and the effects of our behaviour on others. A safer space is a concept that requires taking the needs of participants and staff into account. The term ‘safer space’ suggests that a space cannot be safe in absolute terms; instead, it is a relative state. Making spaces safer than the status quo is a collective responsibility and a work in progress.
Intersectionality means the interconnected nature of social categorisations such as race, class, and gender as they apply to a given individual or group. These categorisations are linked, and they create overlapping and interdependent systems of discrimination or disadvantage.
As youth workers we usually work with young people who experience specific inequalities and those who experience intersectional discrimination. Discrimination and hate speech also appear at youth work settings even if we work hard to prevent it. Discrimination or the fear of it are obstacles for participation and engagement. One of the ways to alleviate obstacles to participating is to create “safer spaces” together with staff and young people.
When building and maintaining a safer space, the identities and lived experiences of people from minority and marginalised identities are acknowledged and respected. Safer spaces allow for minority and marginalised voices to be articulated and heard. This happens through dialogical conversation, and exchange of ideas in a supportive environment. A safer space is a social space, where all young people, including those from minority and marginalised groups, feel that it’s their space to participate. It is a space where also difficult issues can be discussed and addressed. It is where power dynamics, and the effects of our behaviour on others can be examined in order to make everyone feel safer.
Although we strive to create conditions that aim to prevent someone feeling unsafe, we acknowledge that a space cannot be safe in absolute terms and recognize that not everyone experiences space in the same way. Any set of guidelines established to create safety may not respond to the needs of everyone at a certain youth centre. Creating safer spaces is a collective responsibility and always a work in progress. Creating a functioning safer space is not something that happens overnight, it’s a process – it is not enough just to create it, the crucial part is to maintain it, which calls for additional work when implementing it, specifically involving constant reflection and evaluation of our work and improvement of it when necessary.
It is important to see our youth spaces not just as rooms and buildings, but also as all the people who use the space. We would then ask if the space is inclusive and welcoming to all our youth groups, and if not, what needs to be done to change this. We should think of our space and environment as also stretching beyond our physical building into our presence in the community. Sometimes our space and environment will change to an outreach or street setting, sometimes to events we organise, or even our presence in social media. It includes how we are perceived through the messages we put out – such as notices about getting involved.
Guidelines for safer spaces should include: