Introduction

Empowerment self-defense (ESD) provides tools to prevent, interrupt, and heal from abuse, violence, and harassment, as well as skills to interrupt and challenge abuses of power. ESD practitioners approach our work from a feminist, antiracist, gender-inclusive, disability-inclusive, and social justice-oriented perspective, and we acknowledge larger societal and systemic factors that cause and contribute to violence.

This Code of Ethics (COE) states the values and ethical principles of ESD professionals, including teachers and practitioners. (Those two terms will be used interchangeably in this document to refer to people who teach ESD classes and/or lead organizations that teach ESD.) The following guidelines are intended for ESD professionals in addressing our work with students and families of students, such as in the instance with youth.

The ethics described in this document represent a consensus of leaders in the field and are designed to be voluntarily adopted and used by local ESD organizations, national and international ESD membership organizations, and individual ESD teachers and practitioners.

Background 

ESD has its roots in social, gender, and racial justice movements. Its purpose is to offer safety skills and strategies to people who are targeted for violence, such as people with disabilities, LGBTQ+ people, people of color, and women. The purpose of ESD is to help people live full lives that are not diminished by violence or abuse and to trust one’s own judgment. ESD practitioners teach skills and strategies that expand people’s choices, not limit them. ESD programs encourage students to make choices that are right for their lives, rather than insisting they follow rigid rules.

Adoption of this Code of Ethics signifies commitment to acting with integrity, defined as:

     • choosing our actions based on values and facts rather than personal gain,

     • treating others with respect and communicating honestly, and

     • ensuring that students and staff can freely consent to participate in our programs.

ETHICAL PRINCIPLES

Ethical principles for ESD practitioners fall into five categories:

1. Physical and Emotional Safety

2. Financial Integrity

3. Accessibility, Inclusion, Empowerment, and Social Justice

4. Professional Competence

5. Professional Boundaries

PHYSICAL and EMOTIONAL SAFETY

1. ESD practitioners maintain training and organizational environments that are free from harassment and abuse of students, staff, and community partners. The intent of this ethical standard is not to prohibit relationships among consenting adults but to highlight and guard against abuses of power.

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ESD practitioners do not engage in sexual harassment or sexual or intimate relationships with current students or staff in training.

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Because the relationship between a student and a teacher is one in which the teacher always has more power, this boundary helps to guard against unequal relationships and exploitation.

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Some ESD organizations prohibit all sexual or intimate relationships with former students. If allowed, there should be clear policies about when those relationships are permitted.

Parameters should include length of time since the end of the student-teacher relationship and account for age differences (such as no relationships with former students who took classes as minors). ESD organizations that are led by people who are also close friends or intimate partners have clear communication and/or written policies to ensure that close relationships are equitable and consensual.

2. ESD instructors respect physical and emotional boundaries regarding touch. All touch is either educational (to help a student learn a skill) or supportive (to offer comfort or reassurance in a difficult moment). Instructors ask for and receive consent from students before touching them, and offer alternatives to students who say no. Touch is observable and interruptible by others (not a secret) and consent is able to be freely given or refused at any time without negative repercussions.

3. Physical skills are accessible to students with different abilities and needs and are within the capabilities of the students in that course. ESD instructors are trauma informed and have skills for addressing trauma activations.

4. Instructors maintain safe and healthy relationships by engaging in respectful interactions with others (adults and children). ESD practitioners do not erode boundaries, disregard consent, offer or accept inappropriate gifts or privileges, isolate individuals from a group, or belittle, bully, or insult others. Any interaction between any child and an ESD practitioner is observable, interruptible, and not secretive.

5. Practitioners prioritize student safety/well-being if we receive an abuse disclosure or suspect abuse. We respond effectively in a proactive, trauma-informed manner. Organization policies prohibit retaliation against a person who reports abuse.

Examples of addressing abuse scenarios may include:

     ● That staff member or volunteer is removed from contact with children pending an investigation or restorative or transformative justice process.

     ● If an abuse report is made against the owner of an ESD business or executive director of an ESD nonprofit, additional protections are in place to ensure that the leader can be removed from their position pending an investigation.

     ● ESD organizations may engage in a restorative or transformative justice process that creates accountability and healing from harm. This could mean practitioners partner with others in our communities to lead such a process.

     ● ESD practitioners make referrals to service providers in our communities who can provide emergency support in situations of suspected or reported abuse by a child’s parent, caregiver, or household member in the case that the child cannot safely return home.