Healthy Clubbing in a Health Promoting University: What does ‘good practice’ mean for educated door staff?

Graham Watkinson and Bob Mills

Student Services, University of Portsmouth, Student Services Centre, Gun House Ravelin Park, Portsmouth, PO1 2QX, UK. Phone no: +44 (0)1239 284 3697 Fax no: +44 (0)1239 284 3430 E-mail: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

‘In my day, the principal concerns of University Students were sex, smoking dope, rioting and learning. Learning was something you did only when the first three weren’t available’.

Bill Bryson, The Lost Continent

Graham Watkinson

In this paper we wish to address two key points: what does ‘good practice’ mean for club door staff and what level of training is needed to keep a University club safe? The realities of a programme that has been developed over some years will be highlighted and set in the context of a Student Union Club. This programme utilises an integrated multi-agency approach developed within a city in Hampshire, England. The University has taken this programme and developed it further to meet the needs of student clubbers. We acknowledge from the outset that the programme is not perfect but one that is evolving.

Context of University Clubbing and Growth in UK Student Numbers

Over the past twenty years or so, the growth in student numbers coming into Higher Education (HE) in the UK has increased enormously. In 1980 only a third of students that came to University were female. By 1989 that balance had been redressed so that 15% of all the eighteen to nineteen year old population came to University. In 1995 that had grown to 30%.

The wider entry gate has certainly attracted many students from non-traditional backgrounds: people who never aspired to become undergraduates because the educational system previously denied them opportunities. For example, ten years ago one former Hampshire Polytechnic had around 8,000 students, the vast majority of whom were from the UK. In this current academic year it now has 19,000, including 2,500 post-graduates representing 130 countries. Universities are beginning to reflect the society they seek to serve, in what has become a global market place.

As a University, we subscribe to the ‘Health For All’ (HFA) principles and have worked closely in the past with the WHO in developing a framework for Healthy Universities within Europe, building on the Healthy Cities initiative. A Health Promoting University (HPU) is not one that sets out to prevent fun; it is not about curtailing choice, or even about restricting lifestyles. It is about removing obstacles to health and enabling people to fulfil their potential. It is about helping people to be informed so that they can act appropriately, think creatively, to become what they are capable of becoming. We aim to enhance the self-esteem of our students. Nevertheless, on a cautious note, the assumption that high self-esteem and possession of all the facts are protection against drug use is not borne out by reality. A Healthy University does not have health as its ultimate goal, but it does seek to strengthen the health potential of its students and staff. A settings based approach enables us to focus on alcohol and drug related harm. Legal and illicit drugs are included within this. Harm reduction, rather than prevention, is a more realistic approach than abstinence within a University setting, although we do take stringent measures to prevent drugs coming into our University. Students have enquiring minds; some feel the need to experiment and take risks. This is certainly our experience as they seek their own boundaries.

While it would be foolish on my part to even attempt to quantify the amount of illegal drugs that our students consume, the number of cases that are brought to our attention via concerned academic staff, counselling or medical services, with acute drug related problems is very small. Some of these are related to dual diagnosis where the substances have induced or exacerbated a previous mental health problem. Universities need to be aware of the local drug scene and be prepared to minimise harm through policies and pragmatic partnerships.

We are also concerned about the amount of alcohol consumed through bar sales within our Student Union. The turnover from our own Student Union bar is £4,000,000 pounds sterling a year. That makes us the biggest single outlet for alcohol on the South Coast of England. We have a licence for up to 2000 people and we are open from 11am with frequent extensions going on to 2am the following day. At peak times 12 pints of Fosters lager are consumed a minute, enough to fill 36 twenty-five metre swimming pools in a year. It is interesting to note that great quantities of Vodka are consumed with 25,000 litres of Red Bull in attempts to reduce the effect of hangovers!

1. Bob Mills

The Door Staff Registration Scheme - an outline of Good Practice

I am part of a team of people who work within the city on a registration scheme for door stewards. We aim to ensure that all door stewards are trained to an approved standard and that they are capable of working with other agencies. It is important that door stewards can provide a high profile protection and supervisory role which does not detract from the social environment and is not detrimental to the enjoyment of clubbers.

The training scheme commenced in 1992 and has trained over 1,200 door stewards. Within the city there are over 40 pubs with entertainment licences and 17 nightclubs, the Students’ Union being the largest. Clubs and pubs cannot operate without a licence and part of the licensing process is to have door staff who have undertaken a recognised training scheme. Door staff have to be re-registered every two years under this scheme. The training sessions therefore have a mixture of mature door stewards and novice staff. We help to set the training agenda by exploring with them the difficulties that they face whilst ‘working the doors’. So the programme is structured around their needs, enabling them to develop a professional relationship with the pub and club customers. The registration scheme contains sessions on various aspects of club awareness and practical training. Drug awareness, recognition of symptoms and first-aid practice are covered. Common patterns of injury e.g. cigarette burns, eye injuries, clubbers’ finger (lacerated index finger from attempting to brush off glass fragments from shoes), cut feet are explained, as well as the correct way of removing a patient to safety etc. Staff are taught restraint techniques by the Police and Fire Regulations and evacuation procedures by the Fire Service. The licensees will be confident in the knowledge that door security staff have achieved a level of competence which is conducive to club safety.

1. Graham Watkinson

Making University Clubbing Safer

Trainers from the city registration scheme are brought into the University Students’ Union to train our door and security staff in their own setting. The Students’ Union have set up its own security firm which is mainly staffed by students and led by a retired police officer. The training is being used as part of a peer education project. We work particularly with the city council, the health promotion service within the city, and the police and fire departments. As well as these services, Sex Sense (a young peoples out-reach service primarily aimed at reducing HIV transmission), and Sunburst (young peoples drug safety out-reach) regularly engage with student clubbers within the union.

In 1998 a first-aid room was created in the Students’ Union. It seems strange that there was not one there before as it is well used as a ‘chill out’ area. It is somewhere quiet where we can take a student to calm down and be properly assessed. It is staffed by St. John Ambulance Brigade first-aiders from which the majority are drawn from our student body. We aim to have at least four first aid staff on duty every evening (two male and two female) who have radios and can get quickly to any part of the club to deal with any casualties. The door security staff also assist in this role when required. A direct telephone line in the first-aid room connects to the local hospital Accident and Emergency Department who can advise the first aiders.

From some of the profits in bar sales the Students’ Union run a safety bus scheme which takes students home after an evening of clubbing. It is particularly useful as a measure of crowd control. Coaches that seat around 50 people get students away from the venue and drop them off at halls of residence or at specific safe drop-off points across the city. There is also a scheme whereby female students can be taken home, particularly if they live in an area which is poorly lit or do not feel safe. Not everything goes right and sometimes students do become very noisy and boisterous around the city. A community mediator is employed between the University, the Students’ Union and the City Council, who can smooth things over most of the time.

University students enjoy clubbing. The University and Students’ Union experience described in this paper aims to make clubbing safer and has utilised a multi-agency approach. The close engagement with the student body cannot be overemphasised; after all, students of today are the movers and shakers of tomorrow.