Comments on: Social Worker Offers Advice to Break”Bystander Culture” http://www.socialworkersspeak.org/media/social-worker-offers-advice-to-breakbystander-culture.html NASW Communications Network - Social Workers speak out on television, movies and other media Wed, 08 Feb 2012 18:45:55 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: E. A. Wahrburg, MSW, LCSW (NC, NY) http://www.socialworkersspeak.org/media/social-worker-offers-advice-to-breakbystander-culture.html#comment-1198 E. A. Wahrburg, MSW, LCSW (NC, NY) Sat, 26 Dec 2009 02:54:37 +0000 http://www.socialworkersspeak.org/?p=762#comment-1198 I'm in total agreement that there should be more public education on appropriate ways to respond when one observes a co-worker, friend or family member to be in trouble. There is everything to gain and nothing to lose thru such public education. In her opinion piece, Linda Dunphy, MSW relates specific ways where one can safely intervene on behalf of a woman who one observes or suspects to be the victim of domestic violence. Breaking free of the "bystander culture" we find ourselves in, is even more important in today's world, where the behaviors of violence reported in the news seem to get ever more senseless, vicious and unmanagable. If we have a chance of changing this "don't get involved mentality" when a fellow human being is in crisis, we must take some personal responsibility in attempting to intervene. Humanity really needs such acts of selflessness in the interest of the individual under threat, as well as a "booster shot" to our greater society, demoralized by all the acts of selfishness which routinely occur. E. A. Wahrburg, MSW, LCSW (NC, NY) I’m in total agreement that there should be more public education on appropriate ways to respond when one observes a co-worker, friend or family member to be in trouble. There is everything to gain and nothing to lose thru such public education.
In her opinion piece, Linda Dunphy, MSW relates specific ways where one can safely intervene on behalf of a woman who one observes or suspects to be the victim of domestic violence. Breaking free of the “bystander culture” we find ourselves in, is even more important in today’s world, where the behaviors of violence reported in the news seem to get ever more senseless, vicious and unmanagable. If we have a chance of changing this “don’t get involved mentality” when a fellow human being is in crisis, we must take some personal responsibility in attempting to intervene. Humanity really needs such acts of selflessness in the interest of the individual under threat, as well as a “booster shot” to our greater society, demoralized by all the acts of selfishness which routinely occur.

E. A. Wahrburg, MSW, LCSW (NC, NY)

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