Alcohol Impact
‘Creating an institution wide approach to responsible drinking on
our campuses’
Lucy Henry – Alcohol Impact Programme Manager
Agenda for day
10:00 – Arrive & refreshments
10:10 – Welcome & programme updates
10:30 – Group activity: alcohol related issues on your campus
11:00 – Comfort break
11:10 – Presentations from a selection of the 2015-16 cohort on how
they are meeting the Alcohol Impact criteria: University of Leeds &
Leeds University Union, Lancaster University Students’ Union and
Keele University
12:10 - Monitoring & evaluation update
12:30 – Lunch & monitoring & evaluation clinics
13:30 – Group activity: solution-based discussion
15:30 – Goal setting
15:50 – Wrap up
16:00 – Day finishes
Agenda
1. Introduction to the programme
2. The year ahead
3. Accreditation criteria overview
4. Student-led audits
5. Questions
What is Alcohol Impact?
Going to university is a key moment of change for many students’ where they can often be more susceptible to developing new habits and behaviours.
The programme takes a social change theory approach to tackling binge drinking, ultimately reducing harm to students, improving welfare and wellbeing, academic achievement, creating more inclusive spaces, and enhancing the student experience.
Alcohol Impact is an accreditation scheme. It’s our whole institution approach to create the conditions for a social norm of responsible alcohol consumption by students.
Based on a partnershipapproach between the students’ union and the institution.
Alcohol Impact
• Secured just under 100K Home Office funding to run a pilot 2014-15
• 7 pilot students’ unions and their partner institutions who all achieved accreditation
• Conducted comprehensive research to find out the impact of the programme with officers, staff and students’.
• SUCCESS!! Now run as a self-funded model, working with 22 unions and universities
What does the year ahead look like?
Alcohol Impact jiscmail We will aim to send you fortnightly email updates on programme developments at a local and national level. Please also use this as a tool to share good practice/discuss relevant issues
One hour catch up phone calls with lead contacts. Ideally we would like to do this with both lead contacts (at the same time, one from the university and one from the students’ union).
Campus visits x 1 per year per partnership
National Advisory Board: key sector professionals who offer strategic support to the programme –including Home office, PHE, alcohol related charities, Universities UK
National Academic board
The accreditation can be achieved over 1-3 years
Retention of the Alcohol Impact accreditation is subject to continued membership fees
Support day 15 Feb all cohorts
Other things to note…
NUS & Ashton UniversityCurrently applying for a 3 year PHD position to Alcohol Research UK which will include designing and developing a social norms based intervention which could be used across campuses.
Manchester citywide pilotUniversity of Manchester and Students’ Union, University of Salford and Students’ Union and Manchester Metropolitan University and The Union MMU are working with the Greater Manchester Police on Alcohol Impact and related issues.
Cambridge University & NUSResearchers are seeking full funding for all of the field experiments which would include investigating how altering size and shape of glasses can impact people’s drinking behaviours in bars. Initial evidence for this approach has been acquired from research conducted in a bar in Cambridge, indicating that using larger wine glasses increased sales of wine volume by 9.4% compared to standard sized glasses and previous work which observed different rates of consumption of beer in curved vs straight beer glasses (Participants were 60% slower to consume an alcoholic beverage from a straight glass compared to a curved glass)
Accreditation criteria
• Covers a range of different issues across the whole campus and working in partnership with the community; changes to alcohol policy; working on initiation ceremonies; working with local NHS and charities to support students’ to creating bespoke initiatives to meet local needs.
• Online workbook to work through and complete. Supported with resources, advice and examples of good practice
• http://www.greenimpact.org.uk/alcoholimpact
• Total criteria: 50 Mandatory criteria: 15 (99 points – you must meet to achieve accreditation)
• Optional criteria: 35 (221 points plus 40 bespoke)
• Total points: 320 (plus 40 bespoke) Score threshold: (60%): You would need to get 192points to achieve the Alcohol Impact accreditation
Accreditation criteria: scoring matrix
DIFFICULTY
(out of max 5, double for Impacts and Outcomes criteria)
IM
PA
CT
(o
ut
of
max 5
, d
ou
ble
fo
r I
mp
acts
an
d O
utc
om
es
crit
eria
)
1 –
achieved
quickly and
with ease,
no major
obstacles
overcome
2 – achieved
simply and with
relative ease, only
minor obstacles
overcome
3 – achieved
through
moderate effort
4 – achieved over a
significant period of
time through major
effort, multiple
obstacles or challenges
overcome
5 – achieved only
through long term
planning, significant
effort and
overcoming major
obstacles or
challenges
1 –
minimal
impact
Score: 2 Score: 3 Score: 4 Score: 5 Score: 6
2 – low
impactScore: 3 Score: 4 Score: 5 Score: 6 Score: 7
3 –
medium
impact
Score: 4 Score: 5 Score: 6 Score: 7 Score: 8
4 – high
impactScore: 5 Score: 6 Score: 7 Score: 8 Score: 9
5 –
maximum
impact
Score: 6 Score: 7 Score: 8 Score: 9 Score: 10
Accreditation criteria: examples
Collaboration, commitment and intent AI-08 Mandatory The Partnership has formed a local steering group that meets at least twice per academic year.
This may include students’, students’ union staff and officers, sports society members, staff from commercial services, welfare staff,student services, residential staff, academics, senior university management. Ideally this group should include a diverse blend of roles and remits, potentially with some involvement from external stakeholders.
Accreditation criteria: examples
Outreach AI-44 Optional Within the current academic year, the Partnership has actively made use of student coursework and/or dissertations to support one or more of the other criteria in this workbook, or has made firm plans for next academic year.
As part of 76 students’ coursework they were asked to plan a campaign that could be delivered to address the issues the Alcohol Impact project is seeking to target locally.
Buckinghamshire New University Buckinghamshire Students' Union
Two responsible drinking films developed by students’ (one graphic design student, one advertising) who were given project briefs by the Partnership.
Information on Alcohol Impact included in freshers’ packs – including relevant initiatives such as alcohol-free events, where to find water machines, non-alcoholic drink offers in bars, information about freshers’ helpers.
AI-17 Within the current academic year the Partnership has delivered proactive communications to reinforce social norms around responsible alcohol consumption/AI-47 The Partnership has proactively engaged with students’.
AI-17 The Partnership has delivered proactive communications to reinforce social norms around responsible alcohol consumption.
The University of Bradford and University of Bradford Union of Students & University of Leeds and Leeds University Union
Accreditation criteria: examples
AI-27: The Partnership has initiated or provides a transport scheme to ensure students can get home safely after a night out. Safety bus and new partnerships with local taxi firms to help students to gethome after nights out.
Student bars serving alcohol until 1am, and non-alcoholic drinks and food until 2am.
AI-25: Either the students’ union does not have any licensed premises or if it does it ensures that non alcoholic drinks are available at the same or lower price than equivalent alcoholic drinks including promotions. Providing offers on food and non-alcoholic drinks in campus bars
Interventions
Choose specific local issues to focus on:4 W’s
• What is the behaviour we are aiming to change?
• When is the behaviour happening?
• Where is the behaviour taking place?
• Who is the target audience?
– Pre-drinking among students all the time everywhere!!
Be specific by using the 4W’s-Pre-drinking among first year students on a Friday night in Red Halls.
Welfare and wellbeingKey themes:
Alcohol related crime
Academic attainment
Irresponsible alcohol consumption
AI-32 Within the current academic year, the Partnership has piloted one or more innovative interventions on responsible alcohol consumption and evaluated the impact of this. NB – this intervention should be different to the others presented
ISM behaviour change model – we offer tools to help support you to do this. ISM is based on ‘moving beyond the individual’ to consider all of the contexts that shape people’s behaviours – the Individual, the Social and the Material. By understanding these different contexts and the multiple factors within them that influence the way people act every day, more effective policies and interventions can be developed.
University of the West of England and UWE Students' Union
Tips for students’ and information on how to support others on nights out.
Reactive campaigns: volunteers stationed in the centre of Bristol, give away water, tea & toast, lollipops, condoms, flip flops, pints of chips for donations to UWE RAG (Raising & Giving), emergency tin foil blankets to fight the cold. Ability to charge mobile phones & ensure travel home is safe
A PHD student is running a research project to test out the effectiveness of the intervention. He is working with a selection of students’ who have agreed to be breathalysed before and after their night out.
AI-38 The Partnership has proactively engaged with target representatives of sports clubs and societies on responsible alcohol consumption. As part of the sports awards teams will have to be involved in one of the campaigns being run which includes ‘late night do it right’.
University of the West of England and UWE Students' Union
Planning on having a sports nutritionist come in and talk about the impact of drinking on sports performance.
‘Bring your own bowl’ events students’ get a free meal, to ensure students’ are eating if they are pre-drinking and as a social activity for non-drinkers. Link with activities conducted as part of green week.
Bespoke criteria
• Additional points available!!!
• Option to formulate up to three bespoke criteria dependent on local needs (up to 10 points for each)
• You would need to submit any suggestions to NUS, who would then agree a score allocation
• An example from Liverpool John Moores Students’ Partnership: within the last six months, the Partnership has proactively influenced the behaviour of one or more local student-facing service(s), so that they have reconsidered their offer(s) to students.
• Encouraged landlord to reconsider giving out free alcohol to new student tenants, instead negotiated food vouchers.
Tips!
1. Decide on whether you plan to work on the programme over 1-3 years.
2. Get your steering group together
3. Get started working through your criteria –decide who is going to take the lead on which bits, agree dates for this to be done by. Use smart planning tools to make sure deadlines are stuck by (available on the resource bank). Focus on Mandatory criteria first!!
4. Gather data and set your KPIS – what are you aiming to change?
5. Start to use ISM and think about your bespoke intervention.
6. Plan your monitoring & evaluation
Audit Overview
• Each Partnership will have a two-day audit
• You can choose when! Likely to run March – May and November-December each year
• Aim to:
– Accredit the Partnership with either the ‘Alcohol Impact Accreditation’ or a ‘Working Towards Alcohol Impact Accreditation’
– Gain in depth feedback on Alcohol Impact and how you have met the criteria.
– Provide institutions with a useful post-audit document with recommendations for changes to make in the future.
• Submission of online workbook 2 weeks before audit date
• Partnerships would need to be re-audited every two years to retain the accreditation from the date of receiving the accreditation
• We would hope for you to have progressed recommendations made in your report
Audit Overview
Day One Day Two
Morning
NUS-led student audit training
NUS-led student interview training
Student-led key individual interviews with 3 contacts.
Afternoon
Student-leddocumentary evidence review
Documentary review meeting with the Partnership (1-2 representatives minimum)
Optional NUS led student focus groups.
Collect useful research for the Partnership
Student auditors lead process of reviewing evidence, crediting appropriate points, meeting with Partnership group for clarification and asking for further evidence
Partnerships would need to recruit 6 student auditors with support from NUS
Partnershipswould need to recruit 8-10 participants. (ideally not auditors.)
Students’ gain skills in auditing and research
NUS will oversee the process and verification across sites
Student auditors lead process of interviews.
Further information
• Introduction pack
• Online Workbook:
www.greenimpact.org.uk/alcoholimpact
• Resource bank:
http://alcoholimpact.nus.org.uk/resource-bank
• If you would like support advice from other unions/institutions, use the jiscmail!
• Discuss in telephone catch ups with me
• For research enquires: [email protected]
• For everything else: [email protected]
Group activity (AM) – 20 minutes
Alcohol related issues on your campus. You will need to feed this back to the other groups, so please write down your thoughts and pick one person that doesn’t mind feeding back.
A) Discuss with other Partnerships what alcohol related issues exist on your campus?
B) What work is currently or has previously been done to address these issues?
Group activity (PM): progress so far & challenges
A) How have you found working on the accreditation mark so far? This is your opportunity to share any good practice and present on what your students’ union and/or institution has already been doing on the accreditation mark (10 minutes)
B) For this section, you will need to feed this back to the other groups, so please write down your thoughts (20 minutes)
- Any successes so far?
- Any challenges so far?
C) Agree within the group on two challenges from this list that you would be keen to discuss in more depth (5 minutes)
Group activity (PM): solution-based discussion
- You should have two key challenges on your table. You can either stick with the same group to work with on both challenges or move around to another table after 30 minutes. Your reasons for picking a challenge may be that you want to discuss this further or because you have some examples of good practice which you think may help others to address their challenges.
- For each challenge we will share ideas, and begin discussions on possible solutions.
- Feedback to other groups
Solution based discussion: prompt questions for facilitators (30 minutes on each challenge)
- What is the challenge?
- What are the key elements associated with the challenge? What actually is the issue? Be specific!
- Any ideas on what has previously be done to meet this challenge? Did this go well? If not why not? Could you tweak this to make it run more successfully?
- Other examples of good practice either that you have heard about or been involved in?
- Any other ideas, don’t worry if they seem silly or unachievable at the moment?!
- Key strengths and weaknesses of each approach?
Next steps: Plan out step-by-step what you need to do to carry out this solution. What? When? How? With whom or what? What could cause problems? How can you get around those problems? Is this realistic and achievable? In your role, what opportunities do you have to influence change? What specific tools/resources can you access to facilitate the solutions you’ve just discussed?
Goal setting activity (PM)
- Get into pairs and speak to someone you haven’t spoken to today. Discuss one goal you hope to progress in the next month, by December and one by March. These can be small or large goals.
- Try to make your goals SMART. Make sure you write them down and hold onto them.
- Review your goals…in one month, by December and by March. Did you achieve them? If not what was the reason for this? Do you need to tweak your goals? What’s your focus moving forward?