Within recreational nightlife contexts, to ensure that adequate standards of health and safety exist and are adhered to, it is necessary to intervene on the processes that cause and increase risky behaviours. This inevitably leads to the need to know and appraise the factors and mechanisms that can aggravate or reduce risky behaviours. Effective measures, if identified, can be taken to minimise both the health and safety risks of venues settings and to promote the well-being of patrons. However, ensuring that nightlife contexts incorporate adequate health and safety criteria requires the harmonisation of many actors and needs. Good coordination between agencies at a range of levels (European, national and local), and between the public and private sector, is therefore needed.

A set of standards Factsheet

A set of standards Manual

A training manual for the owners and staff. This manual will increase the user’s knowledge
of different risk situations thus helping them to create safer and healthier nightlife settings.

TRAINING UNITS

• Psychoactive substances classification, definitions, concepts,
  effects and associated risks
• Communication. Conflict resolution and preventive strategies
• First aid
• Training for the responsible dispensing of alcoholic beverages
• Management of the physical context
• Legislation

Training of staff Manual

Training of staff Factsheet

• Knowledge of local nightlife issues
• Commitment to safe and healthy nightlife
• Partnership working
• Evidence-based practice

Responses from all questionnaires are brought together in a report. Results are provided using a grading system that shows where approaches appear well developed and where they could be strengthened. Using NightSCOPE allows local partners to identify and prioritise action to improve their approaches to managing nightlife settings. Progress can be identified by repeating the NightSCOPE process at a later date.

NightSCOPE Factsheet

NightSCOPE Manual

Case studies of collected legislative and policy measures

Taken from first chapter of the document

1 Best Bar None

The Best Bar None is an awards scheme for licensed premises, currently running in over 80 locations across the UK. It was developed by the Manchester City Centre Safe project to address alcohol related crime and improve the night time environment. In 2007 an agreement was reached between Greater Manchester Police, the Home Office and BII, the professional body for the licensed retail sector, to develop the scheme nationally. A Board was formed and is currently chaired by Lord Rupert Redesdale. The scheme costs a fee to join, and central assistance is provided in developing and implementing local schemes, includes training of Best Bar None assessors from all stakeholder groups. These include the police, local authority, health professionals and residents.

Database policy - Case studies

The media landscape is changing rapidly. How is it influencing health and safety in nightlife? And how can public health professionals apply media for the best? In trying to answer this question we started with a literature review. This review was conducted in 2010 – 2011, searching academic databases and grey literature. It targets public health professionals to think about media opportunities and thresholds for their work in harm reduction and prevention for risk behaviour in nightlife.

Media Influence Factsheet

Media Influence Guidelines

Media Influence Literature Review

The conference will take place between 12th and 14th of December 2011 in Prague (Czech Republic) and the overarching aim will be to present the products developed within the project to a wider audience. Thus the conference will be presented as a European specialist Club Health event, drawing attention to the resources that are available, how they can be used, and how they link with other European projects. The target audience is especially professionals, policy and decision makers and politicians. It is anticipated that the event will attract 250 delegates from across Europe including network members, nightlife stakeholders (health, criminal justice, local authorities, licensing, transport, NGOs, representatives of clubbers), academics/researchers, politicians, and the media. As well as presenting research findings the conference will dedicate a large part of the time to informing and tutoring individuals on the use of tools including the database, the standards, the staff training and the city certificate. More information and official announcement of the conference will be published later on.

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Visit Club Health Prague

A third Club Health network (CHN) meeting will be organised on 15^th of December 2011 in Prague (Czech Republic) after the Club Health dissemination conference (12^th – 14^th of December 2011). More information and official announcement of the meeting will be published later on.

Introduction

Nightlife plays a major role in modern life, being a critical aspect of youth recreation and a major source of employment, economic development and tourism for towns and cities. However, nightlife activities also create a wide range of health and social problems including alcohol and drug use, anti-social behaviour and crime. The development of safe nightlife is a growing priority throughout Europe, where town and city authorities must manage not only the recreational habits of their own youth, but also those from other countries as international tourism increases. Effectively managing nightlife settings is critical both in protecting the health of young people and reducing the burdens that night time anti-social behaviour can place on public services and society. The aim of this review is to identify a number of effective practice models adopted to manage problems that arise within nightlife settings. The focus will be on community approaches to managing the nightlife environment incorporating multi-component programmes i.e. where and how strategies have been implemented across the nightlife environment at city level and which agencies are involved. Most of the initiatives described in this report either have alcohol as their primary focus or view it as a key component of other problems such as crime reduction or city centre night time disorder. Other documents have been reviewed for this report, and whilst they are not described here they are listed under „References‟ at the end of the report.

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Irefrea (European Institute of Studies on Prevention)

Abstract

Participating in nightlife it is a meaningful cultural activity for young people. Councils welcome a flourishing late-night entertainment industry. But there also problems related to the people involved (alcohol and drug abuse, violence, risky sex…) and to the recreational activity itself (noise, street drinking, vandalism…). Prevention intervention possibilities are numerous, and most have been implemented, however assessment of their outcomes is less common.

We have identified 11 types of prevention according to their main objective (venues centred, community, education, law enforcement, industry collaboration…) and we have reviewed the existing evidence in relation to each form of intervention.

Popular types of interventions as providing information or pill testing are not evidence based.  Other interventions as Responsible beverage services or designated driver programmes, backed by the industry, are not exactly the most effective, especially if they are not enforced. Others like community approaches can be effective but it can be a problem how to achieve their continuity. From the present review, what emerges as the best strategy is the combination of training, cooperation and enforcement. ‘Classical’ measures (taxation, reduced BAC limits, minimum legal purchasing age…) are also evidence-based and effective.

Could be interesting to investigate interventions that address the cultural aspects of nightlife. But this sort of interventions do not depend on the will or the skills of professionals, and are more related to societal changes.

The highly frequent use of popular but ineffective interventions contributes more to the problem than to its solution, and only facilitates giving preventive efforts a bad reputation.

Key words: recreational drugs, prevention, nightlife, evaluation, review

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12th and 14th of December 2011 in Prague (Czech Republic).

You can find more information on the conference website: Club Health Prague 2011.com 

and in the promotional flyer – Download Club Health 2011 Flyer

Club Health Prague 2011 conference is a part of European project ‘Club Health – Healthy and Safer Nightlife of Youth’, which is co-ordinated by UTRIP (Slovenia) and co-funded by the European Commission under the Health Programme 2008-2013.

Club Health team

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Visit Club Health Prague