Safety First

Thom Garfat

Let’s start with this simple statement: In the absence of safety, there will be no connectedness.

Now, there is a part of me that thinks I could just end this article here, but I know that more is required. Context, for example. History, previous experiences, feeling safe enough to continue.

We talk sometimes in our field about relational safety and Jack Phelan talks about how in the first year or so we are focused on our own safety, and Bath talks about how safety is one of the basic needs of young people who have experienced trauma.

So, why is safety, whatever that means, important? See above, ‘in the absence of safety, there will be no connectedness’.

I cannot connect if I do not feel safe. Many young people, in their previous experiences, have connected with significant others and been, hurt, abused, used.

So, why should they connect with us? Why would they expose themselves to further hurt / pain and negative experiences? In their previous experiences, for many young people, connection meant pain. We have all experienced this – just not to the same degree as many of the young people with whom we work.

Think about your own life for a moment. Unless you have lived an unusual experience you have had moments in relationships where you just, simply, did not feel safe. In extreme cases than might mean you were afraid of violence and in lesser situations you might have just felt someone might mock you.

Now, imagine that this is your everyday experience – that the in-between us is always a place of fear, of pain, of defensiveness. What a way to live. And for many of the young people with whom we work, that is their reality. Interactions with others is a constant source of pain.

And so, if we want to be helpful, somehow, we must enable us (you and other) to move beyond this in-between to and in-between in which both of us, but especially the young person, feel safe in this encounter. Relational safety says that ‘in this moment, with this person, I feel safe from harm from myself and other’ What a huge leap that is!

The Purposeful Use of Daily Life Events philosophy starts with the line “in the context of a relationship of safety ...” and, I guess, that is what is central here – if we do not, first, work to establish a relationship of safety, then nothing healing will follow.

So, no matter what your work is, no matter with whom it is, safety always comes first.

Relational CYC Practice is founded on relational safety.

It means, in the simplest of terms, that in this moment, when we are together, we are experiencing ourselves and other as connected in this moment. It means that we are experiencing ‘us’, not just you and me.

But this experiencing of connectedness, this experience of ‘us’ cannot occur unless one of us ‘reaches out’; trying to connect and create and in-between between us. This is not as simple as a hello - but it may be so. Usually, though, it involves the helper reaching deep within themselves and deciding to bring their self to this moment – to expose, risk and make available their essential self in reaching out to the young person – simply put to say ‘here I am waiting for you’, in this moment of interaction.

I am here, inviting you to be here, in this moment, with me.

So, to each of you, as individuals, I might ask “given who you are, how can you show that you are reaching out / available” to this young person in this moment. And how will you tailor your reaching out for this young person at this time?

Connected experiencing evolves from reaching out.