Liverpool - safety tips for young student.

[DeliaOwens]

Hello, I’m after some best friend/your favourite auntie type advice.
my DD has accepted an offer in Liverpool for her degree. So happy, first choice and great match for her.
So, here is my question. She is a very mature and relatively savvy young lady at 18 but has spent all her years so far in a relatively small town, near a small city. So, she has no real world experience of Big City living.
What are your top tips for safety when living and socialising in Liverpool.
She will have a car so what safety tips for retuning to her car if she is working in say a restaurant or late bar?

What tip/tips would you give your friend/niece/daughter as they begin student life?
Oh, she will be in halls in/close to city centre.

Who would compare London and Liverpool though? Totally mad. Liverpool and Manchester maybe. Or Liverpool and Sheffield or Newcastle. Housing costs in y2/3 reflects scarcity. Obviously London isn’t the same as Liverpool and never ever was.

Liverpool is safe, and it's just like anywhere else.
From experience of seeing students in the city, don't wander around with your headphones in, staring at your phone, and then just step out to cross the road without looking! As a driver, we have to be so careful, because none of these young people seem to know how to cross a road safely!

But, obviously, the tips are just the same as anywhere else - don't have your phone out, keep an eye on your bag, either get a cab or walk home in a group if it's very late at night. Just common sense really. Liverpool is a small city and easy to get around.

We were lucky that our young person was left some money in a legacy, that was earmarked for a car. Her studies require a car, her placements might mean three buses or similar. She has a friend in York who also had placements last year and had to reject some placements because she had no way of getting there.

Mount Pleasant is open 24 hours and is not a a nice place to be later on or early morning! The layout means you can be really isolated.

OP for where her halls are, tell her to look at jobs in the Philharmonic.

It's a 2 year post grad masters, so the students started their placements after 6 months.

Thanks for the tip AelinAG.

I think it's about common sense. I remember visiting friends at Liverpool uni and finding parts of the city quite gritty - seeing grubby kids playing in the street after dark etc.

Just don't walk home alone in the dark - like most places, keep aware of your environment.

I think the usual advice of keep your valuables out of sight, stick with your mates on nights out, don't get so drunk you can't stay safe and don't go walking through parks in the dark. If it's University of Liverpool, then campus has security staff around it, and even an app students can choose to upload that's easy to use if they need help (although just saving the security numbers in your phone is also a good step to take if you don't want the app). Interestingly another chat earlier was discussing if it was a good idea to have the MenB vaccine before starting uni as the current cohort didn't get it as part of their vaccination programme. It's not a safety tip as such, but I hate the thought of a teenager going to their room with a headache and the next thing is A&E with meningitis.

this is scare mongering. stop it.

@PrincessFrederica My DD was told exactly the same at another university! Staying safe and knowing how to stay safe is crucial if dc aren’t used to a new city or have been chaperoned by parents! Her uni was very clear about not walking alone late at night and staying with friends and keeping lucid. DD had received all inoculations and meningitis is a real issue at universities too. We tend not to hear about it because of vaccination but if anyone has not had the vaccination, they should. Or avoid certain close contact - kissing! It’s a well known virus/bacteria spreading activity.

I fully understood the previous poster and the essential elements of their post. It was the bit about a teenager going to bed with a headache and then suddenly having meningitis that was scare mongering. I can't believe I actually have to explain nuance, but there you go.

The meningitis B comments although not what the op is asking about is worth a mention as so many people don’t really that it isn’t covered in the school vaccines. I paid for mine to get it in Boots. One DD knows someone who died from it at Uni and my other DD saw an ambulance take a flat of students to hospital with it. One of which was very very poorly.

I also knew a 21 yr old who died of it. My DC's have all been vaccinated. It is common sense.

I don't know why the vaccine isn't included in the standard vaccine programme for everyone.

Funny you mention MenB. I was thinking about that. My young person had an OT Health Surveillance Interview and she was given the first of two HepB jabs there and then. So, it’s definitely in the radar of the Academic institutions.

@PrincessFrederica It is important to know about meningitis! It’s absolutely not scaremongering. Dc might have drunk, be sleepy and sick. They go and sleep it off in their room but then a temperature and a rash might appear but they don’t know anyone and no one checks up on them. This can be disastrous. Vaccination and knowledge is very important.

You're preaching to the converted. Try reading my posts above this one.

@PrincessFrederica It was the bit about going to bed and having meningitis that you thought was scaremongering. I just explained it’s not, that’s all. Glad we agree!

Don’t look a Scouser in the eye, you might become one of them.

FFS! She’s going to Liverpool, not the Ukrainian / Russian border. She’ll be fine, just like the tens of thousands of other students who come to Liverpool every year.

Not specific to Liverpool but, it surprises me how many cars I see that have accessories that suggest its a female driver/owner, either hanging from mirror/dashboard or in the back window. I absolutely get wanting to personalise, but it means when parked and empty its easier to predict that a younger woman will be returning to it.

I can't speak for others but my daughter had a car for nursing. She was in York and I think would have found it impossible without a car. She had placements in Harrogate and Scarborough and was only allowed accommodation if she had back to back shifts. So if she had a 7am start she wasn't allowed accommodation the night before and there would have been no way to get there in time on public transport. I guess she could have paid herself for accommodation the night before though.

@renovatedlady So you must have had plenty of spare money available. From day 1 of uni my DD had not passed her test. (Not that it mattered). Lots of dc and parents cannot afford the driving lessons, let alone a car. So, in effect, some courses are not available to poor people. MN never talks about this form of exclusion. Do the non car owners get York hospitals?

Not that its relevant but we were lucky that grandparents paid for driving lessons. She used her child trust fund for a car. It can be done without a car but it's difficult at some universities. The non car users are prioritised for York hospitals but someone else posted that their daughters friend had to turn down some placements offered in York because she wasn't able to get there. There are huge issues around placements in the smaller universities. For nursing without a car then you'd want to be in a location that has a lot of hospitals on the doorstep because then you wouldn't have the travel issue. University funding needs a huge overhaul as it excludes so many students who can no longer afford to move away. But then its never going to be prioritised over so many other issues in the country right now and no public funds for any of it!!

For nursing without a car then you'd want to be in a location that has a lot of hospitals on the doorstep because then you wouldn't have the travel issue.

So true. I think many potential students need to think about where they apply for this reason. Liverpool has several hospitals within its environs. All but one of DD's clinical placements are within walking distance (not nursing).

I have worked all over the UK for 25 years with very regular trips to Liverpool. I always feel safe there, it is a safe city.

Surprised at the comment re a southern accent. Mine has never been an issue, Liverpudlians are friendly and welcoming to all IME.

Agree there will be lots more homelessness than she is used to but still less overall than other major cities.

Good luck to her.