As the UK’s population becomes increasingly diverse, it's important to remember that our standards require registrants to consider equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) carefully as a means of ensuring safe and effective practice.
Dabbi Taylor, registered occupational therapist and HCPC Council Apprentice, tells us about how psychological safety has shaped his personal journey and professional practice.
I’ve spent a lot of my life navigating systems where being yourself can come at a great cost. I learned early that vulnerability was a liability. So I learned to see myself through other people’s eyes instead - editing what I say, how I present, and what I let people see based on what I think you find acceptable.
That experience informs how I approach my work. I’m an Occupational Therapist in CAMHS - Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services. My interest in EDI is both personal and professional. I come to it as a practicing clinician, as well as lived experience of neurodivergence and trauma.
In both my lived experience and clinical work, I keep coming back to the same question: is it safe to be real here? Safe to show difference, name needs, or admit uncertainty without penalty. The people we work with are asking that question constantly, and the answer drives whether they engage, participate, or withdraw.
At its core, EDI describes an end state: genuine belonging and meaningful participation for everyone, regardless of lived difference. I believe one of the key mechanisms for the realisation of this goal, is psychological safety.
Psychological safety is the felt sense that you will be recognised and respected if you speak honestly - whether that honesty is a concern, a question, a need, or a mistake. Amy Edmondson’s seminal research (1999) on team 'psychological safety' defines it as a shared belief held by members of a team that the team is safe for interpersonal risk taking.
When it is present, authenticity becomes less costly, and people are more able to name what they need without performing or self-editing first. When it is absent, the pattern is often predictable: people mask, disclose less, withdraw, and eventually burn out. That is why recognition and follow-through are critical. What matters is what happens next. That response tells people whether it was safe to speak, and whether it’s worth doing it again.
I’m interested in the gap between EDI as a set of principles that we can agree with, and EDI as something that is felt in interactions - in the room, in teams, and in our systems.
Below, I’m sharing some tools that I use to narrow that gap:
Three ‘habits of practice’ help me keep improving and act as north stars or practical tools for day-to-day reasoning.
Alongside these are six smaller prompts to support reflection. They can be used as a quick mental check-in on someone’s psychological safety - your own, a service user, or a colleague’s - and on your degree of influence over it.
My ‘habits of practice’
- Stay attuned to power (and rebalance it where possible)
- Hold yourself to account by examining any “borrowed” assumptions
- When someone discloses something - take the cost seriously by being clear about what happens with their information and what comes next
My practical prompts to check in on psychological safety
Ask yourself:
- Is this space accessible?
- Once someone has access, what in this environment makes it easier or harder for them to be themselves?
- What can I change in the environment?
- What are my personal assumptions, and where did they come from?
- What part of this environment assumes everyone is the same?
- What happens when someone does speak?
Dabbi is our guest speaker for the CPD Week webinar EDI and your practice (Thursday 5 March 2026), where we'll be exploring these themes in more detail.