The Nest / Y Nyth
Having a Culture of Care nest can help you fly!
The Culture of Care Nest Box / Blwch Nythu Dlwylliant o Ofal
This page contains the resources you need to help you weave a Culture of Care Nest with someone you want to work with.
Nest Box Agreement
Culture of Care Nest Agreements are for everyone and sit along side a standard working contract.
The Culture of Care Nest Box is a collection of resources which includes a Culture of Care Nest Agreement template, instructions on how to use it, along with a completed example. You will find more Nest building supporting resources including some short videos below.
A Culture of Care Nest agreement is a flexible social agreement that enables individuals (both freelancers and within and organisation), to work together within a Culture of Care i.e. a mutually equitable and nurturing environment. They include any access requirements, personal considerations when working together, an 'In Good Faith Agreement', Kindness Pledge and a process to address any difficulties or changes that may arise.
The Culture of Care Nest Box has been designed to be a user friendly tool kit. However you can choose to work with a facilitator to complete the agreement. Rewilding the Artist can provide a Nest Box facilitator if you choose to do this, this is especially useful for projects where agreements may be needed between a number of individuals.
Please contact us for further details about this service.
Why Weave a Culture of Care Nest?
“The Culture of Care Nest is such a creatively devised and presented offering to anyone seeking a much more inclusive, considerate and gentle means of agreement” - Steph Shipley
Weaving a Culture of Care Nest is about holding conversations (face to face and/or online) that help two or more people understand how to work together in an equitable and nurturing space (physically and metaphorically).
Spending an hour or two weaving a Culture of Care Nest can help you to build access, equity & wellbeing into the foundations of a working relationship between two or more people.
Weaving your nest includes but goes beyond sharing access riders and practical details. Your Culture of Care Nest will help you to identify and work through any potential difficulties and balance power between arts organisations, freelancers and funders, as well as between individuals.
The process of weaving your nest - the conversations, and the insights, understanding and togetherness you generate through the process - is more important than any resulting ‘document’.
We have found that weaving a Culture of Care Nest is a joy!
How do I go about it?
The Culture of Care Nest box includes a framework of questions and materials to use in your nest-building. The Weaving and Feathering Materials include the Kindness Pledge, Good Faith Agreement, Working through Difficulties, Scenarios and Additional Materials.
You are invited to tailor all aspects of the questions and materials to your needs.
You may wish to spend more or less time on certain aspects of your nest, and may amend wording throughout.
We recommend having at least an hour to weave your Culture of Care nest. You may wish to ask a third party (eg a facilitator) to assist your discussions.
The most important thing is you use the materials to stimulate discussion and understanding, rather than seeing it as a tick box exercise (tick boxes don’t make comfortable nests!)
How you ‘record’ your conversations is up to you - you can take notes, make an audio recording (easy if it is a zoom session), draw or use some other creative process. Or a combination!
It is recommended that you then weave your Culture of Care Nest before any other work is started. This is because the Nest is mostly about avoiding difficulties, and how to deal with difficulties if they arise, and these could start early on in your work.
What is included in the Culture of Care Nest Box?
The Nest Box is a downloadable collection of tools and is available in English and Cymraeg. It includes the following:
Nest Box Introduction
An introduction to the Nest Box, its contents, and how to create your own Nest Agreement.
Nest Agreement Template
A blank template together with a set of questions and options for you to work through.
Standard Freelance Contract Template
This contract goes into more ‘formal’ agreements that might complement your Nest.
Real Life Example
One real life written example of a completed Nest Agreement.
See below for 6 little videos (each one covering a different section of the Nest Agreement). You can watch them all 1-6 and get the full experience or choose ones on sections you aren’t feeling confident about
Real Life Examples
Here are some videos of real life examples to illustrate the kinds of conversation - the negotiations - you might have for each section of the Nest Agreement.
Credits
The Culture of Care Nest Box has been created by Gaia Redgrave with the support of the Arts Council of Wales, organisational partners, collaborators & other individuals. The resulting documents have been developed from the findings of research, consultation, practice / testing and lived experience with the aim of supporting the development of a Culture of Care, improved access, and wider equity within the arts.
Thank you to…
Gaia Redgrave would like to offer a special thanks & acknowledgments to Nick Cherryman for the Good Faith Agreement, and the following who have supported the development of the Culture of Care Nest:
Arts Council of Wales, Iwan Williams / Ffiwsar, Lindsey Colbourne, Lisa Hudson, Kar Rowson, Utopias Bach, Katie Trent, Zen Redgrave, Morag Ballantyne, Gina Biggs, Steph Shipley and everyone in the Rewilding the Artist Tribe.