MORE ABOUT THE DIGNITY CHARTER

The Dignity Charter is centred around eight core principles, designed to empower your service users and provide clarity on what they can expect from you. The below can provide you, your staff and volunteers with more background on each of them.

1. To be treated with dignity and respect

The way that members experience care and support can shape their feelings about the project and themselves. When members come to a community food support project, they enter an unknown. They open themselves up to scrutiny from others, in ways they may never have experienced before. When members seek food support in the community, they are in a complex, challenging and distressing situation and food support projects must ensure that encounters with members are as empowering and dignified as possible.

2. A welcoming and inclusive space

A key element in dignified food support is to have a clear focus on protecting every encounter and creating a culture of care that foregrounds dignity and trauma-informed practices. Members seeking community food support might be experiencing complex, challenging and distressing situations. A welcoming and inclusive space is one where everyone is treated equally, with dignity, and respect, where they are not ‘othered’ or made to feel different. The interactions must be based on empathy and sensitivity, with space to reflect on any judgements or preconceptions.

3. Clarity about rules, procedures and the capacity limits of the project

Members who approach community food support may have no experience of how food support works, how the project functions, and what they should expect. They should expect to be informed of the project’s aims, values, and constraints. This is particularly important given that food support projects often operate under considerable financial and logistical strain, with fluctuating numbers of members and available food supplies.

4. A choice of food

People who have sufficient income are able to visit shops, supermarkets and other food outlets and select the food that we want to eat. We believe that choice should be extended to those of us using community food support. An important part of dignified food encounters is the provision of choice. We don’t believe that members should have to adhere to the ‘be grateful for what you are given’ mentality. While all community food support is limited in what they can offer, where possible, members should be able to decline food and to request certain foods without judgement. Declining food should not be interpreted as a lack of need. 

5. To be kept safe

Members using food support projects should expect to be supported with appropriate safeguarding practices, and that sensitive interactions are conducted in a manner that maintains confidentiality and ensures privacy. Members should also be made aware of who to approach and how to raise concerns about staff and volunteers in a safe way. 

6. Not to be judged for using other services or shopping elsewhere

Members should expect not to be judged or lose support for shopping elsewhere or using other projects. It is important to recognise that community food support projects are often unable to fully meet the needs of members. Members will often use community food support to supplement the food that they are able to buy from shops. It may also be that some community food support projects are only able to partially meet members needs and some members may need to use more than one community food support project.

7. To be able to ask questions and or offer suggestions

Members should not be expected to know how projects work, their eligibility for support, and the type of support on offer. They should be allowed to ask questions, raise concerns, and or offer suggestions, in a respectful, dignified, and non-judgemental manner. Asking questions should not be seen as being ungrateful. This is particularly important given that community food support projects come in different shapes and sizes and operate on different principles and practices.

8. To be able contribute where possible (and in a variety of ways)

Receiving any kind of support, especially food support, can be challenging and can reinforce the power imbalance between those who provide and receive support. To address this, community food support members should expect to have the opportunity to reciprocate. Some members may only be able to contribute a small amount, but even for those who can’t, there are many ways that community food support projects provide opportunities to contribute. The opportunity to contribute empowers members and helps break down barriers and stigma, removing the perception of dependency and passive recipients.