Cultural Safety

Cultural safety as a term and concept was first used in nursing education in Aotearoa (New Zealand) with respect to ensuring pre-service nurses are prepared to meet the culturally specific needs of Māori patients. The principles and practices of cultural safety are now being applied in many countries and in various social services fields. See: Fact Sheet: Cultural Safety for more background information.

It is commonly stated that cultural safety is not cultural awareness, cultural sensitivity, cultural competence, or cultural empathy. Though doing the inner work to become aware, sensitive, competent, and humble in our interactions with those who are from different cultural backgrounds than us is a key part of the journey towards being a practitioner who offers a culturally safe approach. See: Cultural Safety

What grounds practice in cultural safety is the difference between an anti-bias and an anti-oppressive approach to being in the lives of those who are marginalized and oppressed. We can value and appreciate difference as we become aware, sensitive, competent, and humble, but there is more. To truly provide culturally safe services and environments then we need to be actively calling out the policies, practices, curriculum, pedagogy, and so on that perpetuates inequity. See: What is Indigenous Cultural Safety–and Why Should I Care About It?

Cultural safety calls us to examine the sociocultural-historical circumstances that created systemic racism and stereotypes that create barriers. In the context of Skoden, cultural safety means calling out the people, places, and systems that perpetuate the power and privilege that marginalizes and oppresses Indigenous people in post-secondary education. Truly rooting out the ideological beliefs that colonialism has infused in Western society is what will lead to safety for people who are First Nations, Métis, and Inuit.