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UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA | ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY
WELCOME TO THE SAFER BARS RESEARCH STUDY
The University of Arizona and Arizona State University are doing a study to assess the effectiveness of Safer Bars, a sexual violence prevention program intended to change the way bar staff respond to patron safety concerns and potentially lower the amount of calls to law enforcement.
WHY PARTICIPATE?
There is a real opportunity to be a leader in Arizona in creating safer spaces for patrons.
Patron safety is a key element of Arizona’s Title IV statute. Training your staff to recognize and safely respond to sexually aggressive patrons can help bolster what they already know about patron safety.
​This study will give us more information about keeping bar patrons safe. You, your bar, and staff are the experts about bars and bar culture, and we want to learn from your experiences. Evaluating Safer Bars will help us understand how we can make sexual aggression and assault prevention more effective.
WHAT RESEARCH TELLS US
Research consistently shows that alcohol consumption and sexual assault are related. Although sexual assaults themselves may not occur often in bars, sexual aggression can start in a bar and then progress to an assault in a residence or other space. Bar staff do not always know how to intervene, or whether it is their “place” to do so. Bystander training, like Safer Bars, helps inform bar staff about how to intervene when this happens. The training is intended to help you and your staff develop more skillful ways of working together to address sexual aggression and assault in your establishment.
INCREASE THE BOTTOM LINE
Patrons are more likely to come back if they perceive a bar to be safe! Safer Bars is the training to do just that. The goal of the Safer Bars training is to empower bar staff with strategies to stop sexual aggression from escalating and to prevent sexual assault. After this training, staff will have more tools to use to keep bar patrons safe. Incentives are also available for bar owners, managers, and bar staff for completing study surveys!
THE ARIZONA SAFER BARS ALLIANCE MEMBERSHIP
By participating in the Safer Bars training, you have the opportunity to become a member of the Arizona Safer Bars Alliance (ASBA). As ASBA gains more traction statewide, being a member of the alliance can attract patrons by showing accountability around their safety. Joining ASBA is not only about the training curriculum, it is also an alliance where local law enforcement, bar owners/managers, service organizations, the Arizona Department of Health Services, and Arizona Department of Liquor Licenses and Control work together to prevent sexual aggression and assault. Click here for more information about the Arizona Safer Bars Alliance and the Safer Bars curriculum.
MORE ABOUT THE SAFER BARS STUDY
-Funded by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism/ the National Institutes of Health
-Directed at bars near university campuses in Tucson, Phoenix and Flagstaff
-Recruiting 56 bars across Arizona over 5 years
-Bar staff and bar owners/managers can receive incentives for completing surveys
WHAT BAR STAFF ARE SAYING ABOUT THE SAFER BARS TRAINING
"I came into this expecting to be bored or under-stimulated - the experience was the opposite!"
"The training was good because it showed me some new scenarios that I might not have thought of."
"I learned so much about behaviors to watch out for in the bar."
"The intervention tactics were very helpful."
"Team setting, interactive learning 10/10."
"Everything was very relatable and the exercises were all very accessible. This training makes intervening in possible future situations less difficult and more important/easy."
An Institutional Review Board responsible for human subjects research at The University of Arizona reviewed this research project and found it to be acceptable, according to applicable state and federal regulations and University policies designed to protect the rights and welfare of participants in research. National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism/National Institutes of Health Study Number: NCT04141839
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