Whose Safety, Whose Standards? Reclaiming Ethical Practice

Participatory research is often described as ethical, inclusive and community-led. But who defines what “ethical” means? Who decides what counts as safe? And whose standards shape the boundaries of participation?

Too often, ethical frameworks are inherited from institutions rather than co-created with communities. Risk assessments can prioritise reputational protection over lived reality. Safeguarding can become surveillance. Compliance can replace care.

Whose Safety, Whose Standards? pulls back the curtain on how ethics operates in participatory and community-based work. This session will challenge whose comfort is prioritised, interrogate how safety is defined across positions of power and ask what it would mean to reclaim ethics as relational, accountable and rooted in justice.

🎤 Harsha Patel – Managing Director, Transformative Participation & Partnerships

🎤 Dr China Mills – Research Director, Healing Justice London

🎤 Binki Taylor – Brixton Project

Together, we’ll explore:

✨ How institutional ethics frameworks shape participatory research

✨ The tension between compliance and care

✨ The politics of safeguarding and accountability

✨ What community-defined ethical practice could look like

Expect challenge, debate and practical insight.

If you’ve ever asked, “Who is this process really protecting?” - this conversation is for you.

Our Nuff Sed events are CPD accredited, recognising the value of continued learning and professional development within participatory and community-led research. Attendees can earn 3 CPD points for each session they attend, making participation not only an opportunity for connection and reflection but also a contribution to their ongoing professional growth.

Info: Harsha Patel – Founder, Doing Social | Managing Director, Transformative Participation & Partnerships

Harsha designs participatory processes that people genuinely want to take part in. Since 2002, she has worked across capacity building, grantmaking, co-design, research and strategic partnerships in the social sector.

She has led major co-design initiatives, including shaping a university degree in social change with 120 contributors and reviewing a health equity funder’s decision-making to strengthen inclusion and accountability.

Harsha cares deeply about how participation feels. She believes ethical participation should leave people respected, valued and meaningfully connected to what they are helping to create.

In this talk, she explores what it really takes to “hold the middle” when values, expectations and human limits are in tension.

Info: Dr China Mills – Head of Research, Healing Justice Ldn

China leads the Deaths by Welfare Project, documenting welfare state violence by centring the resistance of people with lived experience and the strategies of bereaved families fighting for justice. Her work challenges extractive research models and cultivates practices rooted in solidarity, accountability and collective care.

In this talk, China explores what it means to rehearse research that is life-affirming — grounded in dignity, rage, grief, love and a commitment to building systems that serve our communities and collective liberation.

Info: Binki Taylor – Co-Founder, The Brixton Project

Binki is a coach-mentor, creative producer and community activator working at the intersection of urban regeneration, cultural placemaking and community advocacy. As co-founder of The Brixton Project, she creates participatory, people-first platforms that centre local voices in the shaping of public space and neighbourhood development. Her work champions inclusive regeneration that serves existing communities rather than displacing them.

In this session, Binki reflects on what ethical participation looks like in practice, grounding questions of power, safety and accountability in lived community experience, and challenging systems to prioritise belonging, representation and collective ownership in the public realm.

Know what’s Happening Next — before everyone else does.

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