Our Values
Community
Community means that we believe in the power of community for healing and the restoration of wellbeing and of balance. Community means relocating the focus of wellbeing and healing from the individual to the collective. Community means challenging the current therapeutic emphasis on hyper-individualistic self-responsibility to a communal responsibility for the wellbeing of all. Community fully embraces the Social Cure. True community is not hierarchical but exists in circles and cycles where the voices of all are heard and valued. The heartbeat of Community is organic, self-sustaining and is deeply connected to the cycles of life- to grief and joy, birth and death, giving and receiving.
Generosity of Spirit
Generosity of Spirit is a counter cultural value which allows for and results in welcoming, belonging, connection, relationality, love and compassion. Generosity of Spirit is a natural result of embodying interconnectedness and a recognition that it is through collaboration and conviviality that healthy communities arise. Generosity of Spirit is a move from I to Us, a radical homecoming, a desire to rise together rather than to exert power over one another.
Integrity
Integrity means doing what we say we will do. Integrity is acting with authenticity, transparency, honesty, vulnerability, self-responsibility, self-awareness and with awareness of impact on others. Acting with integrity means that we live our values. We honour, respect and are open to other views and experiences. Integrity also means that we invest in regular professional supervision and training. Specifically that we take seriously our safeguarding, confidentiality and other policies that protect and impact the people we work alongside.
Intersectionality
Intersectionality is a commitment to viewing every person as an individual. It is an acknowledgement that not all inequalities are the same, that each individual experiences disadvantage in different intersecting layers. It is also a commitment to understanding what each individual needs to support their inclusion in our services. Intersectionality is a commitment to actively seek out places where people do not have opportunity, to look for the overlooked. To hold an intention of positive enablement, aiming to balance inequalities of power and opportunity. It is also a commitment to being willing to see our own privilege, prejudices and blind spots, dismantling our own inner power structures, constantly learning and reflecting and having the courage to be uncomfortable during this process. It is a refusal to be selectively blind to disadvantage and to acknowledge all struggle.
Positive Disruption
Positive Disruption transforms and interrupts existing social control structures. It resolves inequalities of power by listening to marginalised voices, dismantling systems of harm and challenging the status quo by co-creating healthier ways of being together including from profit first to people and planet first. Positive Disruption refers both to external changes and also to changes within; allowing the microcosm to impact the macrocosm. Positive Disruption includes an understanding that what we do in ourselves ripples out into the world, such as meditation and self-reflection being a form of social and political activism. Dismantling inner beliefs and harmful conditioning in order to dismantle this in the world.
Playfulness
Playfulness brings balance, it gives permission for us to be ourselves, to meet one another where we are. In balancing the nervous system through the activation of both the social engagement system and the sympathetic nervous system at the same time, it creates new pathways of safety and connection with ourselves and one another.
Playfulness can also be an access point for other emotional expression such as grief and anger and can open us up to greater creativity and authentic expression. It is a resource that brings us into the present moment and helps us to enter into experiences of wellbeing and joy. Perhaps most importantly, playfulness is a relational concept. From a nervous system perspective, we play with others. This makes playfulness an excellent resource for healing and growing together.
Rhythm
Rhythm helps us to weave a culture of wellbeing into everything we do. Rhythm is the heartbeat which helps us to stay connected with the natural cycles of life. Rhythm reminds us of the importance of rest as part of the cycle of creation and activity. It helps us balance doing with being. Rhythm supports us to ensure that we work in a healthy way and that we prioritise self-care. We can then embody this in our relationships with our volunteers, team and service users in a way that perpetuates health and not harm. Rhythm also reminds us that our work is not creating something new, but as part of the natural life cycle, is the restoration of what already is.