An innovative campaign enabling those who feel vulnerable in pubs and clubs to discreetly approach staff and request assistance is being rolled out across the capital following a successful pilot in a south London borough.
Available at participating venues throughout London, the ‘Ask for Angela’ initiative aims to reduce sexual violence and vulnerability by providing customers with a non-descript phrase they can use to gain assistance from staff members in order to be separated from the company of someone with whom they feel unsafe due to that person’s actions, words or behaviour.
Safe Dating
The initiative – originally launched by Lincolnshire County Council – has already proved successful following a Metropolitan Police pilot in Merton borough before Christmas, which has so far seen more than 50% of venues on the borough sign up and continues to grow.
By “asking for Angela”, an individual is alerting staff that they require help. They will be taken aside, or to a safer location, so they can speak in confidence to that staff member about what assistance they need.
Options available to staff include: offering to call a taxi for the individual; contacting their friends or family; or requesting that an individual causing the distress leaves the venue.
Officers from Met Licensing teams will be delivering the posters advertising the service to venues across the capital. They will be placed in the toilets of those establishments, so as to be discreet.
FULL CREDIT TO Metropolitan Police