CASA Community Agreements:

One way to create a safe enough space for people to navigate discomfort successfully for learning and growth to occur is to begin the community and the partnerships themselves by creating community agreements. “Community agreements,” also known as “communication agreements” or “ground rules for communication,” are a collectively made list of qualities people want to cultivate that will make a space conducive for respectful and effective communication. Although best created by eliciting ideas from the group, below is a sample of key elements of community agreements that can help to make participants feel included, protected, and supported:

 1.  Respect Others: You will hear ideas that may be new or different for you and opinions with which you may disagree. As you participate and interact, try to take in new information without judgment and to keep an open mind. Make sure that your words and body language reflect a respectful attitude toward others. Engage contemplative listening, which means being open, present, and mindful of what is being said, responding thoughtfully rather than reacting mindlessly.

 2.  Speak From the “I”: Speak from your own personal experiences and do not judge the thoughts or experiences of others. Use I-statements such as “I feel…” or “In my experience…” Avoid “You should” statements and generalizations of any kind.

 3.  Respect Confidentiality: Please make sure that everything said in the room stays in the room. When sharing personal anecdotes, make sure to avoid using the real names of other people. Do not sensationalize someone’s private experience by sharing their narrative (even anonymously) without their consent.

 4.  Share "Air Time": While you are encouraged to express your ideas and opinions, please do not monopolize the group’s time. Help create a safe space in which everyone can speak. No one, however, is obligated to speak. Move into the conversation (if you tend to stay more on the sidelines) and move back from the conversation (if you tend to take up more room in group dialogues). Recognize how one’s positionality often impacts how much air time they tend to take.

 5.  No Rescuing or Advising: While we want to support each person as well as speak out when we hear something we think is “wrong,” we need to respect that we aren’t here to advise or save anyone. Ask engaging questions and call people up, not out.

6. Inclusivity in Action - Centering the voices of the folks in the room that most often do NOT have the mic (Progressive stack)

7. Accessibility in Action - Ensuring that physical disability, neurodivergence, and especially invisible disability are prepared for in advance & assumed needed, not based on request (Translation, learning styles, communication styles, ASL, ADA, large font, tech, room logistics, etc.), i.e., separating or removing from the rooms- not an appropriate action.  

8. Committing to Anti-racism - Being Anti-Racist instead of merely "Not Racist," which means taking action to combat & understand how oppression impacts the most marginalized communities in multiple ways and disrupting those systems 

9. Encouraging rigorous debriefing, self-reflection, and critique of ones own positionality and privilege.

10. Avoid tokenizing (i.e........speaking for communities instead of lifting voices, accepting "one" voice at the table as enough representation, asking people of color to represent the views of all folks in their community)

11. Constantly evaluating who is not being heard/seen/included & finding ways to bring them to the conversation, not just accepting their absence or implying it is "their" fault

12. Acknowledge community expertise and folks' unseen labor by recognizing/providing for basic needs by design (food, water, safety, time, childcare, compensation) 

13. Treatment of community and accountability toward repair.