A First Nations methodology. A deep understanding of Western systems. Built for stronger, more confident, more comfortable people across your whole organisation.
We help organisations have the conversations they have been avoiding, and build the leadership and systems that make the change hold.
Safety can't exist without Brave conversations.
Cultural facilitation comes from Aboriginal practice. Dhungai is a Yugambeh word for deep listening and connection. It lives in the space between breaths, the connection between people. That thinking drives cultural facilitation, and leads to understanding, curiosity and the Be BRAVE Feel SAFE methodology. A cultural facilitator is neutral and has expertise. We see and speak to behaviours, patterns and systems, and address them in a way that brings people together, not pushes them apart.
Runs the meeting: agenda, time, participation, an outcome.
The process.
Neutral outsider.
When the session closes.
Shifts the thinking and builds a stronger team. Listens first, works with what's strong in the room, and gets the result the organisation needs.
Every dynamic, system and structure, inside and outside the room. With First Nations organisations, cultural authority.
Neutral, and a skilled listener. Brings behaviours and patterns into the open so the room can move forward.
When the change holds. We stay through Inquiry, Action and Maintenance.
What is cultural facilitation?
For First Nations organisations, non-First Nations organisations, and everyone in between who is trying to work together.
The rooms.
The people who hold the rooms.
The systems around the rooms.
We listen first: to staff, leaders, community and Elders, and to what the organisation does and doesn't do.
We facilitate the conversations and build the plans, structures and capability that come out of them.
We stay with it. The important questions never go away, so people, teams and organisations keep returning to them.
Brave is the pathway. Safe is the outcome.
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Completed a Cultural Safety Systems review of the YMCA Victoria Camps program across five campsites, delivering a report focused on outcomes that strengthen employment, engagement, and curriculum.
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Buneen worked with Bunurong Land Council Aboriginal Corporation over 18 months to bring members and Elders back together after special administration, in an engagement that stretched across teams, Elders, and the board.
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Buneen designed and delivered a strategic vision for Connecting Home, an organisation that works with Stolen Generations survivors.
View projectBuneen holds a place on the Victorian Public Sector Commission Executive Coaching Panel, working directly with First Nations employees and applying the Be BRAVE Feel SAFE method to psychological safety.
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Cultural immersion, Koori Staff Network leadership days, and Lateral Strength Building on the way.
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Creator of the Be BRAVE Feel SAFE methodology. Twenty-plus years across business, government, education and community. MBA (AGSM), GAICD, Executive Leadership Training, Harvard Business School.
For keynotes, MC and Shawn's own writing, visit shawn-andrews.com
Tell us where the team is stuck, and what has already been tried. A senior Buneen team member responds within two business days.