How CSS brings us back to what we already know

As we prepare to release the newest version of our Intro to Cultivating Safe Spaces course later this month, there’s been a need to reflect internally on our offerings over the last year. The need to innovate our courses has been at odds with our uncertainty around changing too fast and too often. We have had to repeatedly ask ourselves how to adapt, grow, and improve without leaving our clients, and ourselves, out of the narrative. 

Early this year, we moved our online courses to a new, more user friendly and collaborative platform. At this time, the Intro to CSS course was uploaded as a placeholder while we converged on a curriculum development process. While this course remains the same in content, the quality and consistency of the course was not in alignment with how we wished to present CSS to the world. In April, we pivoted our projects team into a curriculum development team, and research and engagement commenced to create a more intensive, well-rounded collection of content, beginning with the intro course. We conducted a process of review and feedback with our internal team. We conducted surveys and review periods, and met often to discuss content, graphics and logistics.

But that’s when things got messy and uncomfortable, though this wasn’t clear to us at the time. The curriculum team became a satellite to the rest of the company, operating well on its own but missing the continued input from the different perspectives of the team as a whole. The action and innovation perspectives overshadowed the tradition and relationship people on our team, as we navigated challenges and changes in all departments. 

Then, we had to downsize, and suddenly there was no curriculum team, and those remaining had to make sense of and create from a script they hadn’t been a part of creating. We relearned the importance of trusting one another, and that when someone asks to be involved in a project, it means they believe they have something to contribute. The development of the course slowed down a lot in this period due to lack of staff and capacity. Now as we go through the process of final edits and feedback, this course has become a whole-company project once again, with a smaller and more unified team. 

We are constantly relearning how to practice Cultivating Safe Spaces. This process has been long and hard, but has shown us how much easier the work is when we trust ourselves and each other. We started at a place of unity and understanding, faltered, and arrived back at what we always knew. CSS is a constant practice, and only when we return back to the protocols that we promote are we able to reflect and see our own patterns and low points. We are always learning and growing; it is never expected of you to know any more than you know right now.