What is Take Care?
Purpose
The goal of the Take Care initiative is to prevent negative situations from occurring by encouraging members of the CMU community to observe what is going on around them and act to diffuse dangers before they are immediate. For instance, if a student has a tendency to be violent when they are drinking excessively, we can hope that a friend will speak with them about their habits, perhaps helping them to set limits for themselves. If the person is drinking responsibly, then this may prevent them from acting violently. There are a host of situations that can be addressed before they become imminent problems. We can notice eating disorders, academic dishonesty, depression, and a lack of civility in time to respond and head off the damage they eventually cause.
The inception of Take Care was a response to a callousness about others that has crept into the culture at CMU. We have a reputation for friendliness, but that is not enough to stop or prevent negative situations from occurring. Friendliness falls short of preventing violence when it is about to occur. Friendliness will not take responsibility if someone is hurting themselves or others. Friendliness is a great start, because it encourages people to engage with each other; however, people must go beyond friendliness for meaningful intervention.
The purpose of the Take Care initiative is to encourage students and other members of the CMU community to pay attention to what is going on around them, notice potentially serious situations, and respond to the best of their ability to influence a better outcome.
Philosophy
Years of sociological research have pointed to a pair of phenomena that limit people's willingness to intervene in potentially dangerous situations. Bystanderism, the inaction of people who observe a situation but feel that they cannot do anything to help, is contributed to by diffusion of responsibility and by the fear of doing the wrong thing. Observers who are in proximity to trauma tend to believe that someone else, probably someone more qualified, will respond to a situation appropriately. If there are fifty people close enough to see or hear distress, each of those fifty might assume that one of the others will step in and respond; the result is inaction by all the fifty.
When someone does want to respond and help out, they must overcome the second obstacle to intervening: the fear of doing the wrong thing. This goes along with the first impediment in that not knowing exactly what to do contributes to the idea that someone else should be stepping forward. The two hindrances work together to prevent action, especially in a large group of people. If someone stumbles upon a person who is having a seizure in the woods, it is reasonable (even expected) that help will be given to the person. However, the same person might be ignored for hours or days if they happen to be in an area of high foot traffic in a city. The condition might be the same in both situations, but the responses from people are largely dependent upon their perceived responsibility and their comfort with possibly making a mistake when responding.
In addition to situations requiring quick action and the ability to overcome reluctance to do the wrong thing, there are a myriad of situations that occur daily that require attention and a response. Drug and alcohol abuse, eating disorders, even loneliness and depression should be observed and responded to, in that they are problems that are damaging. These issues can grow into even more serious problems which create the critical problems that demand immediate attention.