It is essential for organizations within the AUCD Network to maintain safe spaces. In the Toolkit team information-gathering process, many respondents recommended cultivating safe and effective spaces for cultural conversations to support the needs of all stakeholders. Safe spaces are environments created for people to feel comfortable having authentic dialogue. Team members are encouraged and enabled to engage in passionate, creative collaboration, spirited discussion and execute the organization’s vision.

The development of a supportive infrastructure is essential to support inclusive, diverse, and culturally and linguistically competent activities. Centers and Programs within the AUCD network who have made significant progress in this area have all attended closely to aspects of their infrastructure, and have highlighted this as a priority area for others. Leadership and personnel expertise, job responsibilities and performance expectations, policies and budgets, and other infrastructure considerations all contribute to creating lasting improvements in this area.

This Toolkit calls for organizations to be intentional in creating inclusive spaces for trainings that focus on healthy conversation and discourse. Specifically, it calls for a move beyond being passive recipients of training to taking action. Experiential learning, empowerment, leadership, and topics related to diversity and culture should be infused throughout trainings.