I took part in TfL’s “Active Bystander training”
We spent 10 minutes looking at a photo of sheep
On Wednesday morning, out of journalistic curiosity, I sat through a new course from Transport for London (TfL), titled: “Active Bystander training”.
I first heard about the course on Sadiq Khan’s social media feed and decided to sign up. After all, crime is up in London - with 12,786 knife offences carried out in the year to March 2023 - so what better way than to learn to fight it yourself?
Taking place on Zoom, the “free” training sessions are designed to “empower people to take action to prevent or reduce harm when they encounter hate crime.”
TfL has funded hundreds of these courses, led by the charity Protection Approaches, and developed in partnership with Britain’s East and Southeast Asian Network. Protection Approaches also receives funding from the Department for Levelling Up (more on that later).
Upon logging into the meeting, which kicked off at 10am and lasted three hours, attendees were introduced to two male course leaders from Protection Approaches. One had his pronouns (he/him) in his Zoom title, and the other was listed at “He/him/his” in an email where he reassured participants that the sessions would “create an inclusive space where all identities of those taking part are respected”. He added: “Sensitive topics will be discussed so please bear in mind your personal mental health and wellbeing. Feel free to have breaks. If there are any issues or anything makes you feel uncomfortable, please contact facilitators in private chat.”
To get the group warmed up, the course leaders showed an image of nine numbered sheep, one with a bucket on its head, and asked us to say which one demonstrated our mood that morning. Several people chose sheep 7, which looked shy, standing against a door. One of the leaders described himself as sheep 3, because he and the sheep had similar bushy hair, and a participant chose another based on the fact his morning was going “baaaadly”. When pressed on my sheep, I chose 9 - a lamb jumping into the air. I said I was “raring to go”, like the lamb. But I was actually full of dread, seeing as it had taken 10 minutes to talk about which sheep we all were, and we had two hours and 50 minutes left of “training” to get through.
Afterwards, everyone was split up into groups and given exercises to do. For seven minutes we had to come up with a definition for “active bystander”. Following this, all attendees recovened and the group leaders explained the term’s true definition. They talked about how active bystanders can help to “tackle systemic injustices'', and someone asked what this meant. Microaggressions were used as an example, although we were told that “no one of us can dismantle and reconstruct a structure in a more equitable way in one day.”
Next we were given scenarios to consider in groups. Mine had to discuss the case of a “young girl who appears to be from East or Southeast Asian descent”, and had been subjected to racist comments on the tube. We mulled over the right thing to do as an “active bystander”, but soon more questions came up. What if the young girl didn’t speak English? Or was deaf? There was also discussion on Donald Trump, and how his comments on Chinese people might lead to such crimes.
Other scenarios played out:
Closing the session, one of the course leaders made clear his thanks to TfL for its funding of the training. It’s no wonder charities like Protection Approaches are grateful to London transport services. Although these courses are marketed as “free”, the reality is that companies are receiving a huge amount of government funding. In the year up until 30 November 2022, Protection Approaches received hundreds of thousands from the Department for Levelling Up (see below) and £18,000 from the Mayor’s Shared Endeavour. Its funding from government grants has vastly shot up since 2018, from £51,000 to £556,000.
Overall, I found the training torturously too long, and even disagreed with parts. For instance, the course leaders warned that there’s a “gendered” element to whether you can be an effective “active bystander”, and that a woman might not always want a man to intervene; it could make her feel unsafe. On the contrary, I think I might prefer the stronger physical sex to offer me protection when facing danger.
The others on the course seemed like very nice people, genuinely concerned about how to be upstanding citizens. I have nothing but admiration for what good souls they were. Still, I wondered why anyone would elect such an undertaking. It seemed like a lesson in “how to be human” more than anything. So much of how we behave in dangerous situations comes down to evolutionary instincts, empathy and luck, rather than TfL courses.
Ultimately it is an indictment on London policing that Khan is thrusting the onus onto the individual to deal with the increased level of crime everywhere. In parts of the course, we discussed whether we would call the authorities to help. But everyone knows these days that they may not come.
Far from recommending this activity, I would have preferred to hang out with the sheep in the photograph all day. And discovering how much taxpayer cash is spent on these courses, I was no longer “9”, and indeed no sheep matched my mood.