These are the deepest values that support our work, and we bring them to everything we do. When we find ourselves in a challenging situation, these are the values that guide us home.

Always learning

As a small organisation working with diverse clients, we are committed to learning deeply in every situation. Always learning means to us that we maintain an attitude of openness and curiosity, and we bring rigour to our research preparation in all relationships. We are open to changing our own way of thinking when others challenge us, or have wisdom to share with us.

Creativity

We take a wide view of creativity: to be creative means to us that we come into situations with a commitment to seeing things that seem fixed in new ways, so that we can support our clients and each other to be continuously creative in building solutions. We craft our work with delight and integrity, and with an aim to bring joy.

Courage

We respect the courage of our clients and our community, who ask hard questions in challenging situations. To us, courage is grounded in truth telling, hope and a commitment to action. We understand that courage can sometimes be lonely, but we hold our ground in trust and solidarity with others. We step up, and we are steadfast even when things are difficult.

Deep listening

Deep listening is core to our practice. We understand this to mean listening with full attention to the way human stories choose to unfold themselves. We listen just as deeply to the unsaid, noticing carefully and respecting when something is withheld, and remembering to keep this in mind when we make plans. We listen with our whole hearts to the wisdom of elders, and to the earth.

Relationality

Our relationality connects us to all our human and more-than-human kin–those who came before us, those who are living now, and those whose more compassionate future we are committed to co-creating. We care for those we know and also for those we don’t know, whose lives are impacted by our actions. We are as generous and as considerate as we can be with the resources we have available, and we are honest about our limitations.

Safety

We are resolute advocates for safety. We extend generous space for each other’s ideas, hopes and misgivings all to be heard and valued. We respect and care for human boundaries, and we pay careful attention to the way we use each other’s human time. Safety means to us that when mistakes are made, we hold fast to a no blame culture for ourselves and others. Our work is informed by trauma-awareness without ever needing disclosure. We always respect cultural authority.

Self awareness

Self-awareness means to us that we think carefully before acting. We are critically attentive to our positions within systems and social situations that give us each the power to cause harm to others. We stop and think about unintended impacts when we are making plans. We give credit to those who are teaching us. When we learn about our blindspots, we acknowledge what has happened, and correct our course.