PartyFit! Peer-to-peer alcohol prevention at events

Summary

PartyFit! is a peer-to-peer intervention taking place in the Viennese night life, especially at events in clubs, discos or on festivals like The Donauinselfest, the worlds largest open-air festival. The core element of the intervention is the peer-to-peer approach, where young adults, who are trained in a modified version of the motivational interviewing technique after Miller & Rollnick, in peer-teams, organized by a peer-coordinator onsite, are visiting events, festivals, discos etc. The main goals of PartyFit! are:

  1. to raise the awareness among young people about their alcohol drinking patterns and their attitude towards alcohol;
  2. to empower them to reflect on their own motivations to drink alcohol and
  3. to raise awareness about peer pressure and provide coping strategies to compensate this pressure.

To reach these goals peer-teams are working at events to get in contact with young people to

  1. inform about alcohol in general, the (health) risks of excessive alcohol consumption and how to minimize these risks, and
  2. to talk with the visitors about their own alcohol consumption and to conduct brief interventions if they find that a visitor has an ambivalent position towards his own alcohol consumption.

If the situation requires a more experienced support, they can forward them to the on-site peer-coordinator respectively give them an address where they can get professional help. The peers are undergoing a specialized training which includes:

  • Basics of addiction, addiction development and prevention
  • Opportunities and limits of peer approach
  • Information about alcohol
  • Information about relevant support service in Vienna to remit to
  • Motivational Interviewing
  • Conflict Management and Basics of de-escalation
  • How to deal with the contact Tools reflection.

The intervention is conducted in cooperation with the Suchthilfe Wien gGmbH which is in charge of the operative on-site implementation and the recruiting of new events for the PartyFit! intervention. The Suchthilfe Wien gGmbH is also in charge of recruiting, training and coordinating the peers.

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