Seven Commitments

The Sanctuary Model uses a set of values to help communities become safer and more able to care for its members.  Sanctuary helps organizations work toward a culture that promotes and supports positive change, a culture that maximizes each other's strengths and minimizes each other's weaknesses and buffers us from repetitive stress.

The basic foundations of this approach are called the Seven Commitments:

• Nonviolence: being safe outside (physically), inside (emotionally), with others (social), and to do the right thing (moral)

• Emotional Intelligence: managing our feelings so that we don't hurt ourselves or others

• Social Learning: respecting and sharing the ideas of our teams

• Democracy: shared decision-making

• Open Communication: saying what we mean and not being mean when we say it

• Social Responsibility: together we accomplish more, recognizing that everyone makes a contribution to the organizational culture

• Growth + Change: creating hope for our clients and ourselves