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Officer update: Spiking increase and Student Safety 

Friday 29-10-2021 - 17:00

We are committed to tackling sexual violence and enhancing student safety within our community and beyond. In light of the recent rise in incidents of spiking across the city and an increase in instances of sexual violence across the region, we want to act to ensure the safety and wellbeing of our students. As we are aware, women are disproportionately affected by spiking attacks and sexual violence. However, this is an issue which affects everyone and so we all need to work together to address this growing and alarming problem.  

This is what we have done so far to address this worrying issue:

  • JMSU Officers released a statement to students, demonstrating their stance on drug spiking and Student Safety within Liverpool 
  • Met with senior staff at LJMU to help develop campaigns and increase support measures for students 
  • Met with Liverpool City Council at Liverpool City Centre: Drink and Drug Spiking to discuss a City-Wide strategy on tackling the rise in drug spiking and future joint collaborations to educate on the issue and combat the problem 
  • Local nightclubs and organisations from the Night-time Economy have reached out to ask our Officer team to help develop policy and initiate campaigns to promote student safety, which are currently being drawn up 
  • We have and will continue to meet regularly with the City Safe group (includes Councillors, Merseyside Police, Licensing staff at the council and other key stakeholders)
  • We are working at a national level with National Union of Students (NUS), to coordinate centrally guidelines and support resources that will be used by Students’ Unions (SU’s) at a local level
  • We maintain contact with executive officers at other Liverpool based SU’s and hope to collaborate in the near future to implement a cross-city safety network for students 
  • We will continue to meet with students regularly to hear their experiences and act in accordance with their best interests and needs  
  • We have planned ‘Bystander Training’ for our student leaders in November.

In addition to this, we also held an open network on Tuesday 26th October where students came together to discuss what we as a Union can do moving forward to protect our community. We received some great engagement and recommendations on this topic to take forward.

Next steps:

  • Looking to support the promotion of self-defence classes in the Sports building for students  
  • Offering drop-in sessions with Martin – the LJMU police officer - so students can raise issues and report incidents 
  • Continue to work with Liverpool Night In members to tackle the issues collaboratively 
  • Arranging some joint activity with other Liverpool SUs 
  • Developing Sexual Violence campaign activity and resources with the help of students 

If anybody would like to suggest on how we can continue to enhance student safety, then please get in touch with us at JMSU (studentsunion@ljmu.ac.uk). Alternatively, if you’d like to see the notes from this open network and know what were already doing to combat the issue, we are more than happy to share with our students.  

The responsibility for spiking lies completely and solely with the perpetrators. However, we want to offer as much advice and information as possible to our students about the support available for those who’ve been spiked. 

Other information and support services:  

 

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