Hard-hitting video to raise awareness of vulnerability
OPERATORS across Scotland are being urged to get behind a hard-hitting new campaign designed to raise awareness of vulnerability.
Launched by Best Bar None Scotland, the ‘Good Night Out..?’ campaign aims to highlight the dangers of vulnerability on a night out – and encourage licensed trade staff and members of the public to look out for anyone who may be in that position.
The initiative includes a video showing three scenarios where different people become vulnerable on nights out. At the end of each, the footage rewinds and shows how the individual’s actions and intervention by various people, including friends, colleagues, a bystander, a bartender and a steward, could have led to a different outcome.
As well as raising awareness with the public, Best Bar None Scotland said the video is designed to be used in staff training so people working in venues know what to look out for. It is being backed by Best Bar None Scotland’s ‘Bar Code’ best practice booklet, which includes guidelines for staff in licensed premises and the ways in which they can intervene positively in situations; and training, which Best Bar None Scotland will roll out in a third phase of the campaign.
Mandy Haeburn-Little, chair of Best Bar None Scotland, which is backed by Diageo, Molson Coors, Heineken, Tennent’s, Maxxium UK, Chivas Brothers, the SLTA, Police Scotland and the Scottish Fire & Rescue Service, said the video aims to “provoke discussion and really make people think ‘well what would I do?’ and ‘what is the right thing to do?’”.
“This hard-hitting film is all about encouraging everyone to take greater responsibility for their own night out, including how they get home and how they know when all their friends are home too,” she said.
“This should not be the role of the licensed trade alone – that is impractical; it is, however, within the gift of every person going out for that evening.
“It’s all about the choices we make and also recognises that after several drinks not everyone may be as clear-thinking as before they go out.
“As a society we all share a degree of responsibility, a common humanity for others, and it is often the smaller actions we take when we see something not right that can make the real difference to an incident becoming more serious.
“We deliberately made the film fairly punchy, even down to showing an incident where someone dies after tripping into a canal when intoxicated. We had a choice about producing a wake up call on how all this is messaged and this was the right decision.”
