Have you ever been in a situation where you’ve witnessed something that you knew was wrong but didn’t know what to do about it?

Brentford’s equity and inclusion director, Kaammini Chanrai shares her experiences of learning sessions on bystander intervention and active allyship.??

This is the question we ask to all Brentford staff at the start of our mandatory learning sessions on bystander intervention and active allyship.?

When we ask this question, we always have a few tentative nods and knowing looks until one individual puts a hand in the air, which is usually followed by a room full of raised hands. Indeed, we have all been in these situations.?

At the beginning of this season, we committed to providing staff with a number of mandatory learning sessions. We prioritised topics based on data and feedback we received from staff, coupled with knowledge of what works when it comes to equity, diversity and inclusion training. At Brentford, we have delivered sessions on tackling anti-Black racism, psychological safety and most recently, on bystander intervention and active allyship.?

Increasingly the question of what works is being asked and, increasingly, there is a realisation that approaches, such as unconscious bias training, are not effective enough according to research.?Research around bystander intervention training is ongoing, but studies from college campuses and the military have been successful where there is a focus on tangible actions and behaviours, not just thoughts and beliefs. The provision of a framework for what we can do right, rather than education simply on how we’re wrong has also been shown to be productive.??

Our training encourages staff to be an active bystander, someone who witnesses harmful or inappropriate behaviour and chooses to intervene to stop it or help the affected person. This involves understanding the different ways people might intervene, which is part of a broader piece on active allyship.??

According to Kick It Out, racism remains the most common form of discrimination in both professional and grassroots football. Racism is a poison that is still steeped so deeply within our society and has found different ways of iterating and manifesting in our game. And whilst we will continue to do everything we can to prevent it, whether that’s through delivering anti-discrimination workshops in schools, emphasising a zero-tolerance approach through our policies, or actively celebrating a diverse range of communities, we also have to look at what we do and how we react when racism happens.?

We are committed to pursuing the most serious sanctions for offenders of racism and working in collaboration with other bodies to prosecute where possible. We try to make reporting as accessible as possible and will be using our No Room for Racism fixture on Saturday to highlight this further. But what about when this happens on an interpersonal level – between colleagues? in the workplace or spectators at a football match? We all have a role to play to challenge racist behaviours and to call it out when we witness it.?

"The questions that always stay in the back of my mind are, if I don’t intervene, who do I expect will? And would anyone do or say something if I was abused?" - Kaammini Chanrai

This training is not new, complicated, or even ground-breaking. I see the effectiveness in this training in its simplicity. There are many reasons why people don’t intervene, but there are many more for why we should. Whether that is to support somebody’s wellbeing, foster a culture of inclusivity or prevent an incident from getting worse or happening again. The case is strong. The questions that always stay in the back of my mind are, if I don’t intervene, who do I expect will? And would anyone do or say something if I was abused??

There is always more we can do in this space. The next step is to ensure this message reaches wider than our staff like the excellent campaigns run by TfL which empower people to tackle hate and assist victims through safe bystander interventions.?

Paraphrasing the famous quote by educational experts, Steve Gruenert and Todd Whitaker, our culture is defined by the worst behaviours we are willing to tolerate. ?

We may not always be able to prevent racism, but we have a responsibility to do everything in our power to stop it when it happens.?