The foundation of the HSE Safer Nightlife Campaign was the development of a volunteer outreach programme. It was central to the programme to ensure direct engagement with people who use drugs, given the known limitations of mass media campaigns. The aim of this new programme was to engage with professionals currently working across substance use, community, youth and other relevant areas as well as students, peers and nightlife representatives to develop diverse teams which could support the establishment of services within festival settings.

Volunteer input, learning and development are important components of the HSE Safer Nightlife Programme. All volunteer feedback which was communicated orally at events, through email and through follow up surveys have been reviewed and will be considered as part of overall improvements for the 2023 programme. A follow up survey (Appendix 4) was shared with volunteers to obtain their feedback on the training programme, HSE resources, their experience of outreach and general engagement with the public. Additional questions were included in the survey for Electric Picnic volunteers to review the pilot ‘back of house’ drug monitoring programme. A total of 19 responses were submitted from volunteers who worked across three different events.