A NEW project has been launched by a Worcester University academic collecting people’s stories of bystander intervention.
Whether they were the person that intervened to help or the one who benefited from such an intervention, Dr Gill Harrop, senior lecturer in forensic psychology, is asking for the public’s help in capturing these stories.
Bystander intervention is about noticing a problematic situation and making the decision to get involved – being an active bystander. The project aims to learn more about how active bystandership has impacted the lives of others, by collecting real-life stories and accounts.
This includes examples of when people have stepped in to help someone, and when they have been helped themselves by an active bystander. Examples include calling an ambulance for someone taken ill in the street, challenging sexist comments in a WhatsApp group or stepping in to check if someone is okay who is being harassed on a train.
The project is being led by Dr Harrop, who also leads the university’s bystander intervention programme.
She said. “We’ve had already had some great examples of helping behaviour shared with us by university staff and students, and we’re now reaching out to ask members of the community to share their bystander stories with the project in order to collect as many examples as possible.”
The project, which feeds into work the university has been doing in this field for nearly a decade, will run for 12 months. People can contribute anonymously and share their story using the online form. The bystander stories will then be collated and shared in an online collection and exhibition to demonstrate the many different ways that people can intervene in to help others.
Visit www2.worc.ac.uk/studentsupport/active-bystander-week.html to share a story.
