Raising LGB&T awareness amongst Vauxhall street wardens
David Stuart (pictured) is London Friend's education, training and outreach manager. In July he spent a day training street wardens in Vauxhall - home to London’s second biggest LGBT scene. He tells us about his uplifting experience.
“London Friend’s training programme provided some LGBT Sensitivity and Drugs Awareness training for the new Vauxhall One Street Wardens. Funded by local businesses, the Wardens patrol the streets in their distinctive purple uniforms, alert for anti-social behaviour, crime, as well as providing a safe presence for the Vauxhall community.
One thing they may have been uniquely unprepared for, was the high number of LGB&T people that pour out of the local nightclubs and saunas, sometimes intoxicated, and often at odd times, such as rush hour on Monday mornings! And despite the Vauxhall clubs and saunas having a 'zero tolerance' policy toward GBL use, the area backing the clubs can often be frequented by highly uninhibited gay men, sometimes the worse for wear, or even sleeping off a GBL high, which can be more dangerous than many people know.
Uninhibited
GBL highs can make people highly flirtatious, even overtly solicitous toward inappropriate people (like a street warden on duty!). More seriously though, GBL highs can expose men to any number of additional dangers such as homophobic abuse, walking out into traffic, sexual assault or overdose.
Though very experienced in dealing with people who live and drink on the street as well as heroin users, the Wardens (pictured above) were eager to learn about what club drugs are and why they are so popular, what the dangers are and what they might expect if they were to intervene in a persons’ 'high' or to wake someone from a 'G Sleep'. They were eager too, to learn communication skills so as not to offend any LGB or T sensitivities and how to approach a defensive or paranoid person without eliciting a defensive response.
It’s not surprising that some of this behaviour might offend some less tolerant non-LGBT aware people. Imagine a crowd of intoxicated, sexually inappropriate, drug-confident, ‘proudly-on-their-own-turf’ gay men spilling over into the busy streets and parks at 9am. Fine for some. Our job today was to sensitively explore how challenging this might be to some Wardens, remind them that diversity is a beautiful thing, and how to differentiate what might just be personally challenging from what is inappropriate, dangerous or illegal.
Although it was naturally challenging for a few, all Wardens were curious about what they didn’t know, and motivated to provide a safe and pleasant presence for all of Vauxhall’s residents and visitors; learning that even the most annoying, aggressive, inappropriate intoxicated gay clubber is vulnerable and entitled to equality of treatment and care, was something they were all capable of grasping, and eager to provide.
A big thanks to the Orange Nation group for their co-operation and for providing the training space. It’s a pleasure to finish the day knowing there are a few more LGB&T sensitive people in the world today. Well at least in Vauxhall."
If you would like to discuss your organisation's training needs, please contact David Stuart: david@londonfriend.org.uk.