Lateral Strength Building
One day on lateral violence and what we do about it, using the Be BRAVE Feel SAFE method. We run it twice: a room for First Nations staff only, and a room for non-First Nations staff. They are different days. You register on your own and we fill the room around you. Facilitated by Shawn Andrews, Master Facilitator, creator of Be BRAVE Feel SAFE, who has practised Dhungai for more than twenty years. Nobody in the room is the problem.
$1,250 a seat, or $1,050 early bird, plus GST. Fourteen seats a room. Lunch included.
A day for First Nations staff. A day for non-First Nations staff. Not the same day.
Lateral violence looks different depending on where you stand in it, so we do not put everyone in one room and hope for the best. We run Lateral Strength Building twice. You pick the room that is yours.
The First Nations room
For Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander staff, from any organisation. Our business, talked about among ourselves: what lateral violence does inside our own mob, our workplaces and our community organisations, and how we hold each other up instead of tearing each other down. Nothing leaves the room. Nothing goes back to an employer. You will not be asked to disclose anything to take part.
The non-First Nations room
For managers, colleagues, HR and people leaders, and anyone who works alongside First Nations staff and wants to do that well. This day is about understanding what lateral violence is and where it comes from, seeing how your own organisation's conditions feed it, and knowing what to do differently on Monday.
Lateral violence arrived here. It has a history and a job to do. It is not who we are.
Lateral violence is what happens when pressure that should go up gets pushed sideways instead. The gossip, the exclusion, the undermining, the eye-roll, the meeting after the meeting. It happens in every workplace. It lands hardest on First Nations people, because the pressure on us is heavier and the stakes are personal. Most people know the feeling long before they know the name. The name comes from Mick Gooda's Social Justice Report (Gooda 2011)* and the work of Richard Frankland (Lewis and Frankland 2019)**, and we use it on purpose.
Lateral strength is the other side of it. It is a set of habits, not a policy, and it can be built. That is what the day is for.
We spend the day on four things. First, recognising it: the loud versions and the quiet ones that never make it to HR, and the moments we are on the giving end as well as the receiving end. Second, putting it outside the room: we draw the thing itself, its symptoms, its causes and its roots, so the problem sits where it belongs and not on the people who carry it. Third, practising the conversation: the one people have been avoiding, worked through with your own situations, using Be BRAVE Feel SAFE, brave first and then safe. Fourth, finding the pathways: the methods and opportunities that fit you and your team, written down with owners and dates before you leave.
It is not a lecture on bullying policy and it is not cultural training. It is a day of facilitated practice, with your own working life as the material, and it is strengths-based all the way through. We name the system, never the person. Every hard truth comes with a way forward.
The Brief, the day, and after
The Brief
Once your seat is confirmed you get a short survey and some reading. The survey tells us what is going on where you work, so the day is built around real situations rather than a slide deck. The reading gives everyone the same starting point. It also tells you plainly what the day covers, that you can step out and come back at any point, and where support is if you need it.
The day
One full day with Shawn Andrews and up to thirteen other people from different workplaces who are working on the same thing. That mix is part of the point. Lunch is included. You leave with a plan for the first two weeks back, when the old patterns come back around.
After
A named contact at Buneen, a check-in a few weeks on, and, for the First Nations room, your own practice notes that go nowhere but with you.
Most people come on their own. If you want the day for your own team, or for a group you have pulled together, tell us on the form and we scope it to brief. Sydney, Adelaide and Brisbane are next: register your interest for a CBD date and you hear first.
Naarm, 2027
Each Lateral Strength Building week runs the week before a Be BRAVE Feel SAFE Masterclass retreat. The First Nations room is the Monday. The non-First Nations room is the Tuesday. Naarm CBD, 9am to 5pm.
- First Nations room: Monday 8 February. Non-First Nations room: Tuesday 9 February.
- First Nations room: Monday 8 March. Non-First Nations room: Tuesday 9 March.
- First Nations room: Monday 3 May. Non-First Nations room: Tuesday 4 May.
$1,250 a seat plus GST. Early bird $1,050 plus GST when you register eight weeks or more before the day. Fourteen seats in each room. Lunch, the Brief and the follow-up included. Pay by card or by invoice. No sessions in December or January.
Sydney, Adelaide and Brisbane CBD: dates to be announced.
Register your interestSee every sessionThe Be BRAVE Feel SAFE Masterclass
Two and a half days in regional Victoria with Shawn Andrews, for leaders who want braver and safer workplaces. Each retreat runs the week after a Lateral Strength Building day, so a team can do both.
See the Masterclass* Gooda, M 2011, Social Justice Report 2011, chapter 2, 'Lateral violence in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities', Australian Human Rights Commission, Sydney.
** Lewis, P and Frankland, R 2019, Lateral violence: an Evidence Check rapid review, brokered by the Sax Institute for the NSW Ministry of Health, Sydney (published 2023).
Register your interest
Tell us which room and which date, if you know it. We come back to you within two working days and hold your seat once we have confirmed it with you. Pay by card or by invoice. Early bird applies when you register eight weeks or more out.