to think the 'Ask for Angela' pub safety scheme is inherently flawed?

But this is no more guaranteed to work than the Ask Angela system, surely? It still has the same issue of the request being overheard by the person the woman is trying to escape from, and it still relies on staff being adequately trained to know what to do. But above all, it relies on the nerve of the woman to expose her situation and lose her dignity by asking for help in public, in a place where others can hear the conversation. At least asking for Angela doesn't reveal to any other potential predators that she's in trouble. I can imagine a scenario in which a woman asks for help at the bar, the bar staff aren't immediately sure what to do and an apparently decent man at the bar offers to drive her home — and turns out to not be as decent as he seemed. Also the potential for some sloshed bloke at the bar, overhearing her say she needs help, to wade in and thump the man she feels uncomfortable with.

As I said, easy to poke holes, less easy to come up with a solution. My suggestion? A poster on the back of each door in the Ladies giving a mobile number which will connect to one of the members of staff who's logged on duty. The woman can have a relatively private conversation with the staff member, who can arrange things and then escort her from the loo to the taxi or safe space or whatever, and no one else in the pub needs to know. I'm sure there'll be issues with that, too. No system is foolproof.

Almost every single organisation had a long list of resistance and the initiative initially trialled for a fixed period. Part of the job meant collecting data on actual interventions - frequency, days of week, time of day, and duration that was fed back to participating organisations.

Very low number of actual interventions that required police, removal (of either person). User experience also captured and companies were surprised by feedback from women and men about the effect of the posters, engagement etc as a result of the initiative. I definitely support such approaches, but I was involved because it was part of my job at that time, which is pretty much how many of the workers took it. Did the training as part of their job, but important to keep in perspective as very few actual situations arose, but helped women feel safe and men to potentially moderate their behaviour. Definitely not perfect, but has got to be a good thing, surely.

Part of staff training should be about watching the crowd looking for angry people, scared people, shifty people and keeping an eye on them. Being prepared.

NMW bar staff? Good luck with that on a busy Fri/Sat night. You can’t expect surveillance duties from staff who are dealing with a packed bar area full of customers all vying for their attention. Maybe pubs/bars should employ a specially trained staff member at busy times, who can keep a lookout for threatening or vulnerable people while they’re clearing glasses, wiping tables etc. They could wear a badge saying ‘Here to Help’ to let people know. Probably cost too much, though. That’s always the bottom line with the training and extra personnel that would facilitate such schemes.

I’ve always found this so weird. Why would you be theoretically on a 121 date but then be asking at the bar for, what, a friend you suddenly decide you need to catch up with half way through?

I like the idea that there is an appreciation of male violence/intimidation, that it’s clear it isn’t acceptable and you are in a protected environment but the practicalities are off. Perhaps if there were small tokens in the ladies toilets you could slip to bar staff, although no doubt those would be messed around with by drunk people. Or a phone in the toilets. There’s got to be a better way.

The point is that an Angel Shot is not a real drink, so you couldn't actually be served one.

So they're a staff member down for who knows how long, how many times a day?

I know more staff against the scheme then for it.
In fact, the ratio is 1. Against it, 2. Indifferent.

i worked in a pub for nearly 7 years, ask angela posters all over the place but were we told what to do if someone came to us and said it? were we fuck

im lucky no one ever said it to me or my colleagues cause we probably would have been a bit flustered and know for a fact it would have gone tits up

a minimum wage, often young employee isn't responsible of rthe personal safety of others.

This is the thing. And what if it puts them at risk too?
The most you can reasonably expect staff to do is to call the police in a situation where someone is in danger but the police are not going to respond immediately every time anyway. Even security guards in a pub can only throw people out, they’re not responsible for what they do once they’ve left.
It probably works best as a deterrent. But then it only reminds anyone who is a potential threat not to be overly potentially threatening in the pub/ nightclub.
A campaign that tells women what they can do to try to keep themselves safe would be better. There are too many flaws with this and there isn’t a way to make it work.

I worked with a number of different organisations to help develop an approach that fit for them, so staff consultation was a crucial aspect of that. Staff in some felt that they would feel too vulnerable themselves if tasked with the responsibility of handling a situation in taking a woman into a private area (that was typically out of public view). So instead of doing that, they stayed with the person asking for Angela and called for help with the till, which itself was a code word to alert colleagues. A female colleague would then approach and chat with the one Asking for Angela and manage the situation in public from there.

Never a one-size-fits all, but what was important was that there was help available and workers knew what to do if the situation arose.

It's a load of cobblers.

They get auto dropped by HO. They get put up.
There's not nearly as much training as being made out here.

It's a great idea in theory; but they really needed to choose a much less common name!

I would hope that bar staff are allowed to refuse to get involved with this. It is far too much responsibility for a NMW job.

Many public places only have mixed sex loos now, so the info on the back of the door is no help.

I read the article and when the scheme works, it works well. It was heartening to see staff go that extra mile to make sure the woman was safe and the predator dealt with. Other venue's staff's apparent ignorance of a scheme that is so important is really disappointing. The "Ask for Angela" posters should only be up in women's only areas. As the scheme gets more well known, the predatory males will also get to know the code, so I think the next step should be a code phrase exclusive to that venue, shown only on the inside of the toilet stall door in the ladies loo, so it is likely only women will ever see it.

I don't understand all the people saying "would the bar staff even know what you meant?"

The posters don't magically appear on the walls, they're deliberately out there by the bar. Bars that put them up will be training their staff on the scheme.

You can doubt whether it's actually practical or safe in reality, but it's stupid to question whether staff in a bar promoting a specific scheme won't have been trained in the scheme. It's like saying "there's a poster on the wall about 2 glasses of wine for £5, but do the bar staff actually know anything about it?"

My male friend said they put these posters in the male toilets too, of a pub he was in.

But this can already happen, and does (see a PP who asked for help in a shop, no code words, and received it). The existence of Ask for Angela doesn't mean that if a woman asks for help directly, she'll be turned away for not using the right code. The main problem of asking bar staff for help, coded or not, is that an 18-year-old on minimum wage may not be best equipped to help. But again, that shouldn't mean people should be discouraged from asking for help in whichever manner they feel comfortable.

Personally I've always wondered what specific situation would make me feel in enough danger that I couldn't leave by myself and had to ask for help via a code, but it obviously does happen.

I also have been helped to access support when with an abusive man but by staff noticing my distress and discreetly getting information to me

I am unsurprised with high turnover of staff, ages of staff, and general lack of care for women that Ask for Angela is not working as intended

women’s toilets can’t really be considered to be safe single sex spaces anymore as so many let males in

I would much rather see prominent posters all over pubs and public spaces aimed at abusers saying that abuse will not be tolerated - like the ones in hospitals for NHS staff

pub & club staff could then have training to keep an eye and ear out for abusive behaviour and language

am sure I’ve seen posters listing abusive behaviour and saying it’s abusive but possibly only aimed at ‘women not putting up with it’ rather than ‘anyone doing it gets chucked out/police called’

the emphasis has to be (imo) on making abusers uncomfortable in public spaces, make it normal for the general public to notice abusive behaviour and police it societally - half the time it is done in plain sight as abusers know it is currently more or less expected by everyone

scatter several posters about with reminders to not to abuse, sexually assault or rape anyone - one above every urinal and in every stall of every toilet males have access to

and some about the public part of the bars (with “we’re watching you, you fucking pervert” maybe?)

we need to put the onus back onto behavioural change of abusers and stop expecting everyone else to have to live like fugitives with code words and safe zones and the like

In all this research how many on the ground bar staff (not management) were consulted?

Yup, always thought it’s pointless. They put the signs up in both them men’s and women’s toilets anyway, so everyone knows about it, including your date 🤣 Either way, you’d need to get away from your date to have the conversation so he couldn’t understand, so may as well just be straight up and say you need a taxi or out the back door etc.

Just someone trying to sound clever with their dumb idea.

I’ve previously been involved with developing Ask For Angela into other areas beyond pubs. ‘Angela’ was identified as suitable because it has 3 syllables and the worker being approached more likely to understand if they only catch the last two syllables. As opposed to ‘help’ which has only one syllable and then prompts the question “help with what”.

It isn’t actually intended to be kept secret from men. Posters have a dual purpose - to empower women to seek help, and to warn men that women they are with have a safe support if feel uncomfortable by men’s behaviour.

The public nature of the posters and initiative is also intended to galvanise bystanders to react if they witness a woman in an uncomfortable situation. Also for pub workers to potentially approach a woman and work Angela into a conversation. It’s intended to be subtle yet powerful. So a guy behaving inappropriately also understands that the unwarranted behaviour has been observed and he can be removed from the situation. That bit is important, because removing the women to a place of safety is great, but potentially leaves the creep to move on to someone else… who then needs to ask for Angela.

Part of my work in my team included checking licences for AforA, also checking induction plans of businesses to make sure that was covered at the earliest stage of recruitment. Also delivered the training for many organisations and provided posters, stickers for windows etc. The electronic rolling advertising things in the town centre were also set to include the AforA messaging to coincide with the nighttime economy. Do lots of moving parts that worked when synced together.

But this is very area specific and had the funding, drive and commitment to this as part of the previous government’s Prevention of Violence against Women and Girls Strategy. Goodness only knows if or how it’s going, as I and two others have left the team and moved on.