CULTIVATING SAFE SPACES WITH CHANTAL FRASER
Turn Intention Into Action: Nurture Workplaces Where People Choose to Stay
Employee retention starts with belonging. When people feel heard, respected, and supported, they stay and thrive.
Cultivating Safe Spaces (CSS) gives you a framework where emotional safety and accountability move from aspirations to practices. Developed by Elaine Alec, Founder of Naqsmist Storytellers Inc., this Indigenous-led framework helps people in leadership roles learn to regulate under pressure, repair after harm, and stay connected through change. It supports organizations in moving from fear to trust, and from compliance to care.
WHAT IS CULTIVATING SAFE SPACES?
A Framework for Leadership Grounded in Respect, Awareness, and Accountability
Cultivating Safe Spaces is a trauma-informed leadership framework that integrates Indigenous knowledge, neuroscience, and relational practice. It's designed for leaders and teams who know that lasting change requires more than good intentions—it requires the internal capacity to navigate discomfort, tension, and complexity without losing connection.
Through CSS workshops, you'll learn to:
- Cultivate safety, by leading with compassion rather than control, so people feel welcome to show up authentically
- Strengthen accountability, so words and actions align, creating agreements that actually hold
- Self-regulate under pressure, repairing harm without defensiveness or blame, so difficult moments don’t spiral
- Hold relationships as the outcome, rather than a deal; helping you decolonize your workplace
CSS teaches you how to stay in relationship through conflict; so your team can grow stronger, instead of fracturing, under pressure. Ultimately improving your Retention and Recruitment metrics, while saving money because employee churn is very expensive.
HOW IT WORKS
The Cultivating Safe Spaces Framework
CSS is built on three interrelated components that support inclusive, trust-based environments:
The Four Perspectives
Traditional, Relationship, Action, and Innovation — four ways of being, communicating and contributing in your life and workplace.
When you honor these perspectives, you create space for everyone to matter. Decision-making becomes balanced. People feel seen. Inclusion stops being theoretical.
The Four Necessary Conditions
- Understanding Self – Know how you respond under stress. Lead from awareness, instead of defence.
- Love-Based Practice – Make decisions from steadiness and care rather than fear or control, making honest dialogue and accountability possible.
- Patience – Recognize stress and trauma responses as part of being human. Leading to a sense of belonging, connection, and safety.
- Discipline – Listen deeply, to understand, rather than to respond— even when it’s uncomfortable.
The Protocols
Understand how current practices, policies and rules create an environment that causes people to feel disconnected and unsafe.
These guiding protocols will help you introduce new ways of interacting with others to help cultivate safe spaces.
Create shared agreements to define how teams engage, listen, disagree, and repair.
Set group expectations, pause conflict, and stay connected through challenge.
WHO BENEFITS
For Leaders, Teams, and Organizations Ready to Lead Differently
Cultivating Safe Spaces is designed for organizations that:
- Want to strengthen belonging and retention across diverse teams
- Are committed to inclusion, equity, accessibility and reconciliation
- Are seeking practical tactics to reduce stress while increasing connection
- Are ready to move from performative policies to embodied practice
Whether you’re leading a corporate team, nonprofit, or public-sector department, the CSS Framework helps you cultivate a sense of belonging, connection, and safety that lasts.
WHY IT MATTERS
Psychological Safety Isn't Soft.
It's Strategic.
When leaders prioritize psychological safety, the impact ripples across the entire organization—from team cohesion to measurably better performance.
- Retention: People stay where they feel safe to contribute and take risks.
- Engagement: Teams that communicate openly through tension are more creative, adaptive, and resilient.
- Trust: Shared language for accountability builds credibility across every level of your organization.
- Impact: When psychological safety is embedded in your culture, your DEI commitments stop living in slide decks and start showing up in how people actually experience their work.
When trust and inclusion become part of your organizational DNA, people don’t just work for you — they work with you.
PROGRAM DETAILS
Practical, Actionable Learning for Real-World Teams
Workshops are available virtually or in person and tailored for leadership teams, departments, or entire organization-wide implementation.
Each session includes:
- Guided facilitation through the full Cultivating Safe Space framework
- Reflection exercises and applied discussions grounded in your team's reality
- An introduction understanding vicarious workplace trauma and how to support each other
- All participants receive the Cultivating Safe Spaces Journal to deepen their learning.
Formats & Fees:
- 60–90 minute introduction: CA$2,000 + HST
- Full-day virtual (5 hrs): CA$5,000 + HST
- Full-day in-person (6 hrs): CA$6,000 + HST
- Travel expenses will be added for all in-person sessions
(Treasury Board rates)
- A 50% deposit is required to book your training date(s)
ABOUT CHANTAL FRASER
Guiding Change with Purpose and Candour
Chantal Fraser, founder of Empowered Path Inc., is a Certified Cultivating Safe Spaces (CSS) facilitator with over four decades of leadership experience. She helps organizations strengthen trust, inclusion, and accountability from the inside out, closing the gap between what you say you value and how you actually operate.
Trained by Elaine Alec, Founder of Naqsmist Storytellers Inc. and creator of the Cultivating Safe Spaces framework, Chantal brings CSS to workplaces ready to turn inclusion, diversity, equity, and accessibility goals into lived, human practice.
For Chantal, this work is deeply personal. As she explains:
“I believe that everybody has something to offer, that if we work together and we share our gifts and support each other in the areas where we're not great, then we can all go so much further.”
Chantal’s approach is direct and compassionate. She addresses hard truths without judgment and provides practical solutions participants can apply immediately. Her style creates space for honest reflection, meaningful learning, and lasting change.
Name Surname
V. Ophelia Rigault
Angela Cheatley, CHRP, M.A.
Guy Dancause
Naqsmist Storytellers — Where Cultivating Safe Spaces Began
Cultivating Safe Spaces was developed by Elaine Alec, founder of Naqsmist Storytellers Inc. and a respected member of the Syilx (Okanagan) and Secwépemc (Shuswap) Nations.
Naqsmist—a word from Alec's nsyilxcən language meaning "many coming together as one"—reflects the heart of this work: building connection, accountability, and shared understanding across difference.
What began as direct consulting has evolved into a global educational framework. Through eCourses, conferences, and a growing community network, Naqsmist Storytellers equips individuals and organizations worldwide with the tools to cultivate emotionally safe spaces, strengthen relationships, and make decisions rooted in care rather than control.
The CSS framework is grounded in Indigenous principles and storytelling traditions—not as metaphor, but as methodology. It's a systems-change approach that recognizes leadership as relational, not hierarchical, and accountability as collective, not punitive.
Frequently Asked Questions
Quick answers to common questions about the Cultivating Safe Spaces framework and workshops.
CSS is a leadership framework designed to build emotional safety, trust, and accountability within teams and organizations. It equips leaders to regulate under pressure, repair after harm, and maintain strong relationships through change.
Leaders, teams, and organizations seeking to strengthen inclusion, psychological safety, and employee retention can benefit. The program is especially valuable for diverse workplaces aiming to move from compliance to care.
Workshops are offered virtually or in-person and can range from 60–90 minute introductory sessions to full-day programs. All sessions combine practical tools, relational leadership strategies, and actionable guidance.
Participants gain actionable skills to communicate effectively, build trust, and foster accountability. Organizations experience improved engagement, reduced burnout, stronger retention, and more inclusive, high-performing teams.
You can book a Discovery Call with facilitator Chantal Fraser to explore if CSS is the right fit for your organization. If you’re not ready, you can join the Naqsmist Storytellers community to learn more about the framework.
TAKE THE NEXT STEP
Explore How Cultivating Safe Spaces Can Enhance Your Team
If your organization is exploring ways to strengthen inclusion, trust, and retention, book a Discovery Call with Chantal Fraser to discuss your goals and discover whether Cultivating Safe Spaces — and Chantal’s facilitation approach — are the right fit for your team.
Not ready to meet just yet? Join the Naqsmist Storytellers community to learn more about the Cultivating Safe Spaces framework and connect with others who are putting these teachings into practice.
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