WES adults, youth, and children work together to create a community that is welcoming, caring, and respectful; a community in which we freely express our perspectives and explore assumptions and beliefs. In keeping with WES’ Statement of Purpose, this Community Relations Pact is a living document designed to nurture a positive, productive, safe, and healthy environment at WES. The Pact encourages members to become more aware of ourselves and others. WES’ adults, youth, and children value and seek to engage each other by:

Improving Communications.

• Communicate directly, face-to-face, when possible, with positive intent and assuming positive intent of others.
• Speak with kindness, sincerity, authenticity, and clarity from our own perspective(s).
• Consider requests for confidentiality with care, keeping in mind when confidentiality is important and builds trust, and when it can be harmful.
• Recognize that each person’s personal story is theirs to share.
• Listen actively and be open to receiving feedback without responding with criticism, judgment, defensiveness, or demand.
• Express gratitude readily and accept appreciation graciously.

Sustaining Positive Relationships.

• Accept responsibility for our own feelings, expressions, behavior, and actions.
• Respect other people’s boundaries and be clear about our own.
• Maintain trust and integrity by carefully making and keeping agreements and honoring our own and others’ right to say no.
• Express regret for harm we may have caused, offer to make amends for transgressions, and do better in the future.
• Openheartedly receive apologies and seek to move forward.

Resolving Conflicts.

• Engage in good faith with WES’ conflict resolution processes.
• Understand that people may need time to process their thoughts and further contribute to the discussion. Allow space for this, with the expectation that we stay engaged with each other.
• Model healthy and productive disagreement in the community through open dialogue.

Building Healthy Community.

• Create and nurture a welcoming and inclusive multiracial, multicultural community.
• Acknowledge that unconscious systemic oppression exists at WES and in the larger society and continues to affect us.
• Support each other’s growth.
• Appreciate individual choice while also recognizing the importance of community health as a whole.