Participating Agreements
Shared agreements ensure that participants decide on the forms of communication, boundaries, and culture that is appropriate for their group, meeting or workshop.











Shared agreements ensure that participants decide on the forms of communication, boundaries, and culture that is appropriate for their group, meeting or workshop.
Participating agreements are a set of directions for how each participant aims to behave in a workshop, course, meeting etc. They are co-created by everyone in the room to reflect the kind of culture that participants seek in order for the group culture to feel safe, respectful and encouraging for all involved. The details will vary from group to group although there are key similarities that any group of people desire.
Participating agreements can be used in any context where a group of people will be working together. A weekend workshop, for example, may want to draft shared agreements that include respectful communication, confidentiality, articulating boundaries, speaking one at a time etc. A community group meeting may wish to include agreements about equality, listening to all ideas, allowing the facilitator to close discussions for timekeeping etc. There are no rules about what to include - it will be a group code of conduct that all participants agree to. A facilitator or any group member can refer back to the agreements if difficulties or challenging communication arises.