Guiding Principle no 6: Agency and custodianship.

Members of each community at Bramblewood have a role in promoting:

  • their own safety, autonomy, and consent
  • each other’s safety, autonomy, and consent
  • the interests of the other-than-human members of the Bramblewood community 
  • the interests of Bramblewood communities who attend on other days
  • the interests of future members of the community
  • the interests of our planetary community now and in the future.

All facilitators in our communities have a lead role to play in holding the space and safety for the group.

Children and young people, especially, need to know that the adults want to be with them, will help keep them safe and will help them meet their needs. 

Many participants are also able to, and consent to, have a rich role in promoting the above.

To help with this, the whole community attends the opening and closing meetings for each session.

Participants, not yet able to promote all of the above, will at least need to be able to have a simple reciprocal and meaningful conversation about some of them and consent to attending the meeting*. 

We encourage curiosity and a “no bystanders” stance within all our communities, questioning and checking in with each other when situations arise that challenge the above and don’t seem comfortable.

In communities that seek out and value everyone’s views, conflict occurs. This is important. We know that conflict, brought out into the open, explored and well navigated, is a sign of healthy relationships and community. We see conflict as a mismatch in needs and/or a mismatch in understanding. Where conflict arises, we support people in navigating it themselves, as well as providing mediation where that is helpful, to increase understanding and find ways to meet unmet needs. 

*For some young people, this or other features of the setting, (e.g. its wild natural features, or the risks posed by having an open fire) may be asking them to handle more than they have capacity for at the time, or at their stage of development. When we think this may be the case, we listen to and support them and their families in working out either how to temporarily bolster their capacity (perhaps by a parent or carer accompanying them in setting for a period), or we may need to suggest that they try again when their capacities have naturally developed some more.