Updates On Our Steps Toward Accountability

January 26, 2021 – We are:

• generating and allocating resources to an internal survivor-led process.
• offering direct lines of communication and transparency to folks serving as advocates for survivors.
• organizing an accountability team that will push for individual, interpersonal, and structural changes within Free Write so this harm is not repeated in the future.
• creating policies and processes to communicate about harm and accountability with all who have a stake in Free Write’s work as well as the community at large.
• reviewing the effectiveness of our organizational policies around training on sexual harassment and confidential reporting processes should sexual harassment occur.
• updating job descriptions to specify the expectations of everyone in the organization to prevent violence and harm.
• documenting progress and challenges, “acknowledging that an accountability process is not a “cure”, changes in behavior happen slowly, and healing is a lifelong commitment. Without documentation, the progress and challenges may go unnoticed. Keeping an accountability journal with a critical eye towards performativity and addictions to patterns of communication that undermine trust.” (Kaba/Hassan p.44)
• while protecting the anonymity of survivors, documenting this process to share as a community resource.
• studying and implementing shared decision-making strategies and non-hierarchical leadership structures so that leadership is decentralized and decision-making power is spread more evenly amongst Free Write staff and students.
• looking critically at Free Write’s operations to ensure they are aligned with our stated values, specifically the abolition of systems of violence and the intersectionality required at the core of that practice.
• decentralizing whiteness and its traditional approaches to grieving.
• decoupling this process from a funding-centered virtue signal. This is community-focused, not non-profit survival driven.
• offering therapy opportunities and/or subsidies for survivors’ therapy.
• recognizing that this process is ongoing, highly agile, and adaptive. Us seeking repair is a process that we are in for life.
• offering these steps and this process in ways that is the most accessible by the most people
• updating the public statement on the website at the end of each month.