Harm and the mechanics of reporting
First, let’s recap…
In the first of our series, we talked about the importance of accepting that harm has been perpetrated by the people in your organization. Sitting with that and then taking the necessary steps to create mechanisms in your organization to report, respond to and track harm, and then build methods of accountability. We also talked about Defining Harm and how you can do this in your organization.
Now onto the second part of the series: Building the mechanisms for reporting.
Mechanisms of reporting may single handedly be the most important stage when dealing with harm, but they are also dependent on all of the systems that come before and after them.
The mechanism in which people report harm encompasses 4 areas:
The practical and logistical steps to submitting instances of harm.
The humans and technology who will be part of the process and where they will participate.
What happens once a report is submitted.
Let’s get to it!
The logistics of submitting an instance/ instances of harm
It is critical that you provide multiple options for submission. These can range from completely anonymous, partially anonymous, confidential, to fully open.
Fully anonymous methods mean that no personal identifiers are shared or collected (e.g. name, address, email, phone number, position) that link the person reporting to the submission.
Partially anonymous means some personal information is collected with consent and is voluntary, this could include the person's department or the perpetrators name.
Confidential (via informed consent) means the reporter's submission and identity are known but not publicly or widely disclosed.
Fully open submissions means all personal identifiable information is shared by the person submitting the instance(s) of harm and there is a possibility that their submission and information will be shared.
These options will inform the platform, and whether the submission is formal or informal. This might include a third party collection platform, email, written submission placed in a physical location, verbal submissions, etc. The most important considerations in designing multiple submission options are:
Ensure the person submitting is thoroughly informed about each option, the process, who will have access to the submission, what they should expect from their submission and the level of confidentiality and/or anonymity they should expect;
Ensure all submissions are stored ethically and in a manner that maintains Pipeda requirements and the human rights of the person who has experienced harm;
When designing these mechanisms, collect feedback and insight from as many people as possible to ensure they have a say in a process that will directly benefit them and their work environment;
Prioritize the autonomy of the person who has experienced harm. This includes ensuring they are empowered to make decisions about how they report, who they speak to, whether or not they speak to anyone at all, what next steps look like, and the kind of care or support they access.
The humans and technology who will be part of the process and where they will participate
We often see organizations making the assumption that the best processes for reporting harm are automated and remove human involvement. This is going to create a system that is not flexible to the needs of individuals and is a victim to the flaws of technology.
Including people in the process diversifies the options a person who has experienced harm can choose from. This is aligned with the principles of transformative justice in that it centers the needs of the victim of harm and demands the community be involved in solution building in some capacity, while maintaining the autonomy of the victim.
Transformative Justice is a process where all individuals affected by an injustice are given the opportunity to address and repair the harm. Those affected consider and recount how an act has affected them and what can be done to repair the harm. The perpetrator is then held accountable to the individual by way of restitution. Transformative Justice (TJ) is a political framework and approach for responding to violence, harm and abuse. At its most basic, it seeks to respond to violence without creating more violence and/or engaging in harm reduction to lessen the violence. TJ can be thought of as a way of “making things right,” getting in “right relation,” or creating justice together.
Transformative justice responses and interventions:
Do not rely on the state (e.g. police, prisons, the criminal legal system, foster care system (though some TJ responses do rely on or incorporate social services like counseling);
Do not reinforce or perpetuate violence such as oppressive norms or vigilantism; and most importantly,
Actively cultivate the things we know prevent violence such as healing, accountability, resilience, and safety for all involved.
The people and technology that will be part of the process must be transparent enough for the person reporting to make informed decisions about how involved they want the individual to be and where they want technology to step in.
This will require you to map out your reporting mechanisms (however many you will make available), identify who (internally and externally) will be involved in the process and how. This might include:
X person will forward all written submissions to an external company
X person in HR will have access to the inbox for confidential reports, and will contact the person who has made the report to schedule a meeting with X person from HR or an external company/consultant
Making these steps clear, unambiguous and open to feedback is the most effective way to ensure the mechanisms for reporting you have created will actually be used.
What happens once a report is submitted
Restorative processes often revolve around the questions, “Who has been hurt, what are their needs, and whose obligations are these?” (Zehr, 2002). Transformative justice expands these questions further to ask how we change the causes and conditions that allow sexual violence and abuse to thrive in the first place (Kershnar et al., 2007).
Building the process after reporting is the starting point for what accountability looks like. Before we get into the depth of this aspect of the mechanisms of reporting, it’s important to understand a few truths that are sometimes contradictory:
Sometimes victims of identity based harm do not want to see any radical or notable changes, they just want to be heard and their experiences documented;
Some victims of identity based harm want the perpetrators to be removed from their position of power, and some don’t;
Perpetrators of identity based harm may be from marginalized groups;
Reporting identity-based harm because victims often feel like the harm is not as detrimental as other forms of harm. More importantly, they’ve consumed messaging about how “cancel culture” ruins lives and are hesitant to cause that level of disruption.
With that in mind, it's important not to forget to carefully construct this aspect of your identity based harm reporting process. Do not under any circumstances equate this step in the process with accountability.
Here is where it’s extremely important to center the autonomy of the person reporting. The avenue a person has chosen for reporting (confidential, anonymous, detailed) will inform the events that will follow. Regardless of the route, they (the person reporting) should be the final decision maker for the next steps selected, and we strongly recommend making the following options available and accessible:
Accessing mental health support. Racial trauma and other forms of identity based trauma have been found to cause serious consequences on a person’s mental health. Whether or not a person wants to pursue action on the perpetrator, they should have access to the necessary support after these traumatic events. It’s also worth noting that this may not be the first time the person reporting is experiencing identity-based harm, and they may require robust, long term support from a certified professional.
Community healing. When identity harm occurs, the person who has faced harm might find that the best way to heal is not necessarily to just be in conversation with a mental health professional, but to be in community with people who understand their lived experience. Community healing within your organization (if the context allows), or outside it, might be a possible next step. This may include building a relationship with Indigenous community centers and elders for Indigenous staff facing harm, trans community care organizations etc.
Trust building. If a person has gotten as far as to report an incident of identity-based harm, we can assume they have *some* trust in your institution. However, we should never assume that this is not an opportunity to further build trust in order to keep them engaged in the process if they would like to be. This may look like affirming their experience and ensuring they will receive the necessary support, care and if necessary, advocacy.
Selecting an advocate. Reporting an incident of identity-based harm can be tasking and retraumatizing. What's worse, it is sometimes the beginning of a process rather than the end of one. For this reason, it would be extremely beneficial to support the person who has experienced harm in selecting a person who can act as their advocate and champion whether they choose to be anonymous or not. This will mean that if the victim chooses to go down a more robust road in this process and in seeking accountability, they will not need to be in the frontline of what comes next.
A breakdown of what accountability could look like. Here is an opportunity to be transparent about all the different options available to them if they choose to bring the perpetrator into the transformative justice process.
You may have noticed that none of these steps include a prompt to assess the reports that have been submitted. Assessing whether identity harm is worth pursuing is a form of discrimination and harm in that it stipulates that some forms of harm are not as dangerous as others and it is within the organizations purview to decide.
However, we do recommend setting up a method to ensure that harm that been reported does not overlap with existing policies and mechanisms for reporting around sexual assault, discrimination, human rights violations etc.
This brings us to the next part of our series: Designing what accountability looks like.
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QuakeLab is a full-stack inclusion agency that provides the tools, expertise and methods to take your vision for inclusion from idea to action. We use proven design thinking frameworks and results-based management to position diversity, equity, and inclusion as a functional and integrated part of your business structure.