Fearless: Strategies for response, courage and reflection for female clinicians

We designed a workshop entitled ‘Fearless: Strategies for response, courage and reflection for female clinicians,’ which entailed sessions with our Director of Human Resources, Responsible Officer and an NHS conflict resolution specialist. This is a one of the very first movements of its kind within an NHS organisation.

The sessions aimed to address:

• Recognition of harassment behaviours
• Strategies for response
• The importance of speaking up
• Understanding the formal pathways for escalation
• How to access support

Fearless” was a workshop delivered in Feb 2020 just before the pandemic hit us. It addressed the definition of workplace sexual harassment. See spectrum below.

The mammoth scale of the problem was described and the strategies on how to speak up and escalate were shared. From rehearsed one liners such as “do you touch all boy doctors like this as well” to “can you repeat yourself” to formal escalation via the Responsible officer route were described. Women left the session with fire in their bellies and “calling it out” was the gift their hands to make it better for the next generation of sisters.