Everybody who participates in one way or another is required to conform to this Code of Conduct [CoC]. This includes attendees, organisers, speakers, sponsors, and volunteers. The CoC applies before and throughout the event (including related activities such as social events and social media).
Our aims in having this Code of Conduct are:
1. To Inform everyone of the expected behaviour. We are a diverse community, and having a Code of Conduct makes the expectations of everybody’s behaviour explicit and transparent.
2. Helping everyone feel safe and included. Organisers and Attendees may have had unpleasant life experiences, poor experiences in public places, or can be first-timers. We want to set the expectation that harassment and other undesirable behaviours are not acceptable. And if somebody does have an unpleasant experience, we want them to know that it’s neither the norm nor good for us as a community.
3. To help establish trust that if an incident is reported, we will respond with a trauma-informed approach and proceed with an investigation. Even where the incident concerns someone in a position of authority.
The Code of Conduct is the basis for dealing with a report, assessing whether the CoC was violated, and what action should be taken.
Code of Conduct
We ask each attendant to keep the community in mind and do their best to foster a positive environment for everyone. Behaviour that contributes to a positive environment includes:
- Being kind and considerate to others
- Behaving professionally
- Using welcoming and inclusive language
- Being respectful of differing viewpoints and experiences
- Gracefully accepting constructive feedback
- Being supportive of newcomers
We are dedicated to providing a harassment-free event experience for everyone, regardless of race, ethnicity, culture, national origin, colour, immigration status, social and economic class, educational level, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, age, size, family status, political belief, religion, and mental and physical ability.
- Harassment of conference participants in any form will not be tolerated. This includes offensive comments related to the categories above, intimidation, stalking, harassing photography or recording, sustained disruption of talks or other events, violent threats or language, inappropriate physical contact, and unwelcome sexual attention. Advocating for, or encouraging, any such behaviour is also not acceptable.
- Nobody is owed any form of interaction or explanation why a person doesn’t want contact. If someone asks you to leave them alone, accept and respect it without any further discussion, even if you think it is unwarranted.
- People may not wish to be filmed or photographed – respect their wishes, take extra care when publishing pictures and provide a way to request them to be taken down.
- Be careful in the words that you choose. Remember that sexist, racist, and other exclusionary jokes may be microaggressions and unwelcoming to those around you. Excessive swearing and offensive jokes are not appropriate at Little Ro and partner events.
- Sexual language and imagery are not appropriate for any venue to which the CoC applies
- Little Ro and partners have earned a reputation for being welcoming. We would like to keep it that way. So, condescending behaviour towards people of different knowledge levels or abilities is unacceptable.
When The Code Applies
Our Code of Conduct applies to all event-related spaces. That includes, but is not limited to
- The event venue(s) and the event hotel(s)
- Any conference-related social activities
- Social Media including Slack channels, tweets with the event hashtag, and other online media
- The Code of Conduct does not exclusively apply to events on the conference agenda. For example, if after a scheduled social event you go to a bar with a group of fellow participants, and someone harasses you there, we would still treat that as a CoC violation.
If A Violation Occurs?
In case of a Code of Conduct violation, we will
- Ask that a participant stops their behaviour.
- Demand that a participant prevents further contact with certain other participants.
- Removing a participant from the conference, without a refund.
- Cancel a talk or not publish a video of the event talk.
- Engage with law enforcement with the consent of the victim or where there is a danger of escalation and danger to safety.
Assistance
In the unlikely event that a CoC violation occurs will be happy to help contact hotel/venue security or local law enforcement, provide escorts, where safely possible, or otherwise assist those experiencing harassment to feel safe for the duration of the conference. However, we will not contact security or law enforcement without your consent, except when not doing so would create significant danger for other participants.
If you’re currently afraid of your physical safety or are in danger, contact the police on 999.
Reporting Breaches of CoC
If a breach of the Code of Conduct happens to you, or witness it happening to someone else, please contact a member of our team immediately either in person or by sending an email to support@littlero.org. Your report will be treated confidentially and only discussed within our senior team.
The team will be introduced in person at the event and you can approach any of them at any time to discuss an incident or concern. We will have a peer support worker on duty. You can also ask any other staff to help you that find them at the conference.
If you feel unsafe reporting in person, you may choose someone to represent you. In this case, we’d need their contact information and it is made clear that this person represents you.
You are not a burden to us by reporting incidents.
We rather consider reports an opportunity for us to act: by knowing about an incident, we can act on it, and often prevent it from continuing or repeating. But if we don’t know, we can’t take action.
If you are not sure whether the situation was a Code of Conduct violation, or whether it applied to that particular space, we encourage you to still report it. We would much rather have a few extra reports where we decide to take no action, rather than miss a report of an actual violation. And knowing about incidents that are not violations, or happen outside our spaces, can also help us to improve the Code of Conduct or the processes surrounding it.
Please include, when possible:
- Your contact info (so we can get in touch with you)
- Names (real, nicknames, or pseudonyms) of any individuals involved. If there were other witnesses besides you, please try to include them as well.
- When and where the incident occurred. Please be as specific as possible.
- Your account of what occurred. If there is a written record (e.g. tweets or slack messages) please include screenshots, or otherwise a link.
- Any extra context you believe existed for the incident?
- If you believe this incident is ongoing.
- Any other information you believe we should have?
If you don’t have some of this information, or not at this time, please still make the report anyway.