The SAFE Method
Creating Cultural Safety From the Inside Out
The SAFE Method
The SAFE Method was created by Shawn Andrews as a response to a truth he saw again and again:
You can’t fix broken systems by working harder inside them. You have to rebuild them — with culture, care, and safety at the centre.
Developed through lived experience, leadership, and years of working across government, education, justice, and community, the SAFE Method is a First Peoples-designed framework for driving real, lasting change.
It’s not just about helping people feel culturally safe.It’s about building the systems that make that safety possible — and sustainable.
What It Is
The SAFE Method is a strengths-based approach to cultural safety, healing, and structural reform. It works across five interconnected domains — because change must happen in people, in communities, and in the systems around them: Self - Agency - Family - Community - Organisation. Each of the domains are listed below.
Why It Was Created
Shawn developed the SAFE Method out of necessity — after decades of navigating systems that were never built for First Peoples. Too often, those systems expected individuals to change, while the structure stayed the same. SAFE flips that — creating the conditions where healing and leadership are possible.
How It’s Used
Today, the SAFE Method guides work across all arms of the Buneen Group:
In consulting, through Buneen, it shapes cultural audits, strategy, governance reform, and truth-telling processes
In employment, Through Buneen Employment it supports both jobseekers and employers — creating long-term pathways, not one-off placements
In youth work, through Dreaming Futures Charity it underpins cultural reconnection and healing for children in care
Shawn also uses the SAFE Method to coach leaders, facilitate high-stakes conversations, and support organisations to build structures that last.
It’s not just a framework. It’s a blueprint for change — built from community, backed by care, and proven in practice.
The Safe Method has five interconnected domains, but it always starts with SELF.
Healing begins within
We support individuals to develop emotional literacy, cultural identity, and personal resilience — the inner strength to lead, speak, and grower.
Power to speak Power to act
We help people and communities build confidence, restore decision-making power, and lead on their own terms — with purpose and clarity.
Kinship is everything
We strengthen intergenerational connection, cultural belonging, and relationships that support healing — especially for children and young people in care.
Truth-telling, governance, and collective strength
We hold space for mob to lead together — through cultural governance, community-led planning, and healing that honours story and place.
Change the system — not just the person
We work with organisations to embed cultural safety at all levels — policy, practice, leadership and structure — so the system becomes safe, not just the staff.
