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University of Western Australia (UWA) College Row LDAT

Project dates: August 2018 – August 2019

Target audience: Young adults, aged 18-24 (UWA students and residential students)

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Activity Aim

The UWA College Row LDAT aimed to reduce risky drinking and associated harms among 18 – 24 year olds, particularly students and residential students.

The project worked to achieve this by creating safe community spaces, education, peer support and mentoring. This included the development of a toolkit and training for events to outline alcohol management policies and the harms associated with alcohol use.

Issues

  • High alcohol consumption levels among university students at social events.
  • Limited experience and knowledge amongst student event organisers of event planning, roles and responsibilities and how to mitigate risk.

Drivers

Students who reside in college accommodation are more likely to drink alcohol at levels that are risky or very risky to their health.

Alcohol is often central to student social activities on and off campus and excessive consumption is often socially accepted, particularly among peers. Australian and international literature highlights the importance of initiatives to create safe social environments targeting young tertiary students.

The LDAT completed the following steps and activities as part of this Community Action Plan:

  • Consultation: Aug – Sept 2018
  • Toolkit and training program development: Sept 2018 - Jan 2019
  • Implementation at Colleges: commenced Feb 2019
  • Training program delivered: Feb 2019
  • Train the Trainer program delivered: May 2019.

The program was showcased at the Asia Pacific Student Accommodation Association (APSAA) Conference in May 2019, providing the LDAT with a high-profile opportunity to share its successful approach with other residential Colleges nationwide.

The activity centred around the development of an Event Management Toolkit and training program, outlining alcohol management policies, harm minimisation, event management and risk management for student event organisers.

Resources included:

  • event management procedures / guidelines
  • event management plan templates
  • risk management procedures / guidelines
  • risk management plan templates
  • incident report template
  • event evaluation guidelines
  • event evaluation template.

The main objective of the project was to reduce harmful drinking amongst students living on campus by educating and upskilling student event organisers within College Row LDAT members to organise and host safe events.

The following tactics were central to achieving this goal.

  1. Development of a practical resource to support the planning and management of events with alcohol for College Row LDAT members. This comprised a suite of policy, procedure and guidelines documents that could be adapted by each College Row member.
  2. Development of an Event Management Training Program and corresponding resources. Components included:
  • alcohol information
  • legal requirements
  • event management planning
  • event debrief
  • event evaluation
  • participant resources (web-based and print).

3. Development of a Train the Trainer pathway for the Event Management Training Program to ensure sustainability of the approach.

Impacts

The following positive impacts were recorded:

  • 100% of the Colleges agreed to embed the Toolkit and training into their orientation program.
  • 100% of the College partners agreed to embed the Toolkit into their individual College procedures.
  • 100% of the Colleges have their own College-specific page on the online Toolkit.
  • 91% of participants in the training program agreed/strongly agreed that the program was relevant to them and their roles as event planners within their respective College.
  • Training session participants reported increased confidence in delivering and planning events. Confidence in being able to run an event and know what to do to minimise harm from alcohol amongst university students increased from 65% to 82%.
  • Evaluation shows that the Toolkit is valued by LDAT partners, including students.
  • The training program has been embedded in 100% of the participating five Colleges.
  • Following presentations by the LDAT at the Asia- Pacific Student Accommodation Association (APSAA) Conference in May 2019 and the Alcohol and Drug Foundation’s ‘Prevention in Practice’ Conference in June 2019, interest has been registered by seven parties to adapt the program. The WA College Row LDAT has now developed a License Agreement and is in negotiations to support program implementation by other University residential Colleges.

Were there any unintended consequences?

None identified.

The key strength of this program was building the platform for a sustainable and ongoing approach, in that:

  • Training was built into the policies of participating university Colleges.
  • The inclusion of the Train the Trainer component has ensured that the content and approach is being maintained beyond the initial Community Action Plan timeframe.

Lessons learned

Originally, the LDAT intended to create physical Toolkits, with a hard copy file containing all the guidelines and additional information printed and bound and delivered to each College. One of the partners, however, suggested taking the Toolkit online.

The LDAT then decided to create a website using Google Sites, providing one central online Toolkit that all Colleges on College Row could access, as well as a dedicated page for each College to feature information relating to their own specific processes and procedures.

Additionally, after delivering the first round of training in 2019, students requested more information around drink spiking and how to reduce the risk of sexual assault. New pages were created on the website to reflect the content requested.

Reflections from community

“Was actually helpful in that we can use tools provided for College events.”

“Very excited for the College Row platform! Will be a huge help.”

“Helpful and well-tailored to College situations.”

Partners

  • University of Western Australia Local Drug Action Group (UWALDAG)
  • St Catherine’s College
  • St Thomas More College
  • Saint George’s College
  • Trinity Residential College
  • University Hall.

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