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Strengthening social safety
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The Dutch Ministry of Defence puts social safety and integrity high on its agenda. A socially safe working environment is essential for the effectiveness of the team and therefore the operation. The Ministry of Defence wants to stimulate this desired behaviour.
The current policy pays attention to preventing undesirable behaviour, just as social safety focuses on encouraging desired behaviour and valuing differences.
Defence's integrity policy is based on the 3 principles 'promote, monitor and consider', which must always be in balance. Strengthening a socially secure team is seen as an important pillar for promoting an honest and therefore reliable defence force.
The approach
Completely eliminating undesirable behaviour cannot be achieved through measures alone. That is why a proactive approach is essential. This means that the Ministry of Defence pays attention to early detection and an appropriate response to these types of situations through training.
An important part of this is improving registration procedures and carefully analysing reports of undesirable behaviour. By learning from this, the working environment can be structurally improved.
The focus of the Relevance training courses is on creating a safe and inclusive working environment. We continuously evaluate our approach and adjust it where necessary. The aim is to create an organization that not only responds to incidents, but also as a learning organization that continuously improves.
A defence-wide approach in 3 phases
Implementing the regulations to comply with the legal requirements of social safety.
Continuing to grow in the field of social safety and mastering the training so that it can be used in practice.
Securing, evaluating, learning and continuously improving to grow into a learning organisation.
The assignment
To be able to comply to the three set phases, Relevance has developed a custom-made curriculum.
In a military organization, camaraderie is essential: "We leave no one behind, we protect and strengthen each other." Social safety is about protecting each other from undesirable behavior, valuing individual differences and the opportunity to learn from mutual trust.
These are therefore also the core values of the custom-made training courses. With a permanent team of more than 20 trainers, we developed training courses in the areas of valuing differences, speaking out - discussing - addressing, and dealing with diversity, equality and inclusion (DEI).
Social & psychological safety, also in the Dutch Antilles
Since 2023, the armed forces are also active on the Caribbean islands of our Kingdom: Aruba, Curaçao and Sint Maarten.-1.jpg?width=300&name=PHOTO-2023-06-15-09-58-10%20(1)-1.jpg)
Due to their specific location, cultural differences and activities, our training courses require a different approach. Together with our local partner Teamwork Caribbean, Relevance has developed unique training courses in which, with the help of local actors, training is provided in the field of leadership and social safety in both the Dutch and Papiamentu language.
Working with our own case studies, and with the option to communicate in the local language, the outcomes contribute enormously to the impact we have when it comes to awareness and increasing social and psychological safety in daily work.
Do you want to know more about what The Dutch Ministry of Defence does in the Caribbean, among other things? Watch the series 'Coast Guard Caribbean' on National Geographic.
Results
"Social and psychological safety was an important theme within our organization, but we lacked a concrete approach. The training helped us to clarify the frameworks and develop a systematic approach.
The management team has had in-depth discussions about our role in promoting social safety. Through practical simulations with experienced trainers and actors from Relevance, the group has gained valuable insights that we can immediately apply in practice for better social safety.
The combination of theory and practice has ensured that we are now well-prepared to create and maintain a safe working environment. The design of the training, structure and implementation have been very helpful to us.”
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