Creating Cultural Safety: Understanding Safety in Black and Brown Bodies in Social Work | BASW England Derbyshire & Nottinghamshire Branch

*This is a Hybrid event*

The session will invite practitioners to reflect on how safeguarding is experienced in the body, how cultural safety can be intentionally created, and what practical steps social workers can take to foster environments where Black and Brown children, families and adults feel genuinely seen, heard and safe. The branch welcome guest speaker Dani Bello, Dani is an Art Psychotherapist and founder of Bello Mind & Soul, a therapeutic arts practice creating spaces where people feel seen, heard and understood. Growing up in a mixed-race family, navigating both Black and White heritage, Dani became deeply aware of the embodied question of safety — what it means to feel safe, or unsafe, in racialised spaces. This lived experience now informs both her clinical work and postgraduate research.

In this seminar Dani will explore how racial trauma is not only psychological but embodied within the nervous system. Drawing on her Master’s research, contemporary trauma theory, and her creative practice, she will examine how feelings of safety — or threat — can shape engagement with services, behaviour, and trust in statutory systems.

In supporting networking and practitioner wellbeing this is an in-person branch event with the option to join online. The session is open to students, social workers, BASW members and non-members studying, living, or working in the Derbyshire/Nottinghamshire area: free refreshments will be available.