Meeting Minutes: COPE° Working group on Psychological Safety and Sexual Assault and Harassment in the Maritime Sector

TUES, APRIL 12, 2022 | 7:00 AM ET

Events

1) Welcome

Participants of the meeting were invited to introduce themselves if they wish to in order to get to know each other a little better.

New members proposals were introduced with the group and agreed upon.

2) Activities and Scope of Work

For reference, find scope of work of this COPE° working group:

  1. Review and amend existing IMO model course 1.21 – Personal Safety and Social Responsibility
    As proposed in document MSC105/16/4, submitted to IMO Maritime Safety Committee in 2022 by Dominica, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, InterManager, IIMA, ICHCA International, IFSMA, AMPP.
  2. Evaluate and provide training options
    Designing courses on NEMO, available totally free of charge. Investigating other training options. Taking into account. Minimum standards and Advanced standards. Listing out different kinds of outputs for parties to consider and opportunities for user groups.
  3. Harmonizing best practices and guidance documents, industry resources and studies
    Amongst United Nations bodies (IMO and ILO); NGO diversity manuals such as ICS, WISTA, ISWAN, BIMCO, INTERTANKO, INTERCARGO and the World Shipping Council. How do we make sure this work is easily implemented into ISM manuals, company procedures, etc.
  4. Awareness and response
    Output relevant for mariners and other maritime professionals will be shared online by means on different channels. The working group will be open to hear the voice of the industry and take information into consideration. Reliable and accurate information about different aspects.

a) Sub-Group on IMO Model Course 1.21 PSSR

Latest version of the review of IMO Model Course 1.21 on PSSR was by email on Monday. We thank everyone who worked on reviewing this course already with the great work done so far. And invite interested people to join the sub-group working on the IMO Model Course.

Jillian Carson-Jackson provided an update on the work on the PSSR Model Course. Discussion points were:

  • Link with ISM – Language input on ISM on psychological safety on emergency situations, arising from this Model Course
  • During the IMO review of the Model Courses, the timetable will probably be removed for all of the Model Courses, into a recommended range of durations. This was mentioned during the HTW8 IMO sub-committee.
  • This COPE° working group will focus on the content more than on the hours, we want to mention that at IMO as well.
  • We invite people joining this meeting to describe what this work means to them, which we can use for awareness of this group and light up the focus on the work we do. We could use this while doing a YouTube live webinar or by having language about it on the NEMO° course we will develop later.
  • The table of part B – Par 6.4 mentions “Understand the impact of harassment, bullying and assault on ship safety, victims, and bystanders”. It is expected that the MSC is going to argue if this language should stay in the IMO model course. The group agreed that a Model Course is meant to be a guidance document and that this language is of utmost importance to keep.
  • If IMO Maritime Safety Committee agrees to do the review, then Dominica will be willing to take this forward in a working group within IMO.
  • Eva will send all participants copies of the documents to MSC105 submitted for Human element training and watchkeeping, by other IMO Member States.
  • The meetings of the sub-group to work on the IMO Model Courses are usually divided into two meetings to cover the different time zones. We will plan another meeting of the sub-group on our next session at 3 May 2022.

b) Reporting mechanisms and accountability

(postponed this agenda item to the next meeting on 3 May 2022)
Investigate more about SASH reporting mechanism, accountability, processes, responsibilities, and guidance.

  • Are there people who want to join on this work?

3) Decisions and take-aways

  • Invite people joining this meeting to describe what this work means to them.
  • Schedule a YouTube Live Webinar to discuss our work, the purpose and way forward in public. (Eva will share details and invite later this week.)
  • Update the participants of this meeting with documents submitted to MSC105 on human element training and watchkeeping.
  • Invite people to think about how we can link language on IMO model course 1.21 to the ISM.
  • We will wait with working on the IMO Model course 1.21 until after the Maritime Safety Committee will discuss documents on this work on 25 April 2022.

4) Next meeting

Proposed to meet on Tuesday 3rd May 2022 at 11.00 UTC using the Zoom platform.

ANNEX A
List of Members and Participants

The members and participates of the COPE° Working group on Psychological Safety and Sexual Assault and Harassment in the Maritime Sector are listed below.

*The information in the list is privacy sensitive, and thus will not be published here.*

ANNEX B
Terms of Reference

The COPE° Working group on Psychological Safety and Sexual Assault and Harassment in the Maritime Sector is hosted by Center for Ocean Policy and Economics, a subset of The Northeast Maritime Institute – College of Maritime Science. COPE° facilitates committed maritime government, non-government, corporate, education, science and technology experts and partners to collaborate and create drivers for change. Members of the working group will be sharing information, ideas, learnings and pooling resources in order to work on:

  1. developing and delivering relevant actions and impactful solutions
  2. drivers for change, in order to tackle the wicked problems present in our world today
  3. solutions to build on an international UN framework to connect the industry to objectives.

The work the COPE° working group will be driven by ethical and humanitarian based values, taking into account:

  1. building on a psychologically safe workplace culture in the maritime sector
  2. the successful integration of vulnerable and marginalized groups, in support of diversity, equality, equity, inclusion and acceptance
  3. the issues relating to sexual assault, harassment and bullying in the maritime sector
  4. transparency and integrity
  5. supporting and honoring mariners globally

ANNEX C
Activity 1 – Review of IMO Model Course 1.21 – Personal Safety and Social Responsibility

This sub-group will be chaired by Ms Jillian Carson-Jackson. The sub-group will update the main group on their work in the next meeting.

It is proposed that the existing model course is reviewed and amended in a stepwise approach:

  • Step 1 – review and update the existing model course as an incremental revision, based on the proposals identified in Annex I. develop the revised course outline and teaching syllabus for Model Course 1.21
  • Step 2 – review and consider amending the priority level 4 for the model course and, as appropriate, commence the full review as soon as possible taking into account the current workload for model course review and validation.

Noting the mature nature of IMO Model Course 1.21, and the focus on amending to expand existing training on safe working practices, effective communications on board ship, and effective human relationships on board ship to include elements of psychological safety and dealing with trauma and trauma response, it is proposed that Step 1 could be initiated following agreement at MSC 105, with the draft revised model course provided to HTW9 for validation.

The focus of the informal working group will be to provide the revision and provide content to the model course.

Points to consider:

  • Action in case of human emergency/accident is not well covered.
  • Action in case of personal crisis is not covered.
  • Advantages of shipboard community (in time of cabin internet) needs to be expanded.
  • Ethnicity culture & SASH needs to be addressed.
  • Should we be looking at a Basic PSSR and an Advanced PSSR for the Management team?

ANNEX I

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