Our DanceWize program’s service delivery for the entire 2021 financial year has been impacted by Covid restrictions. Still, staff and volunteers adapted to deliver harm reduction education and support services in a range of contexts to promote the health and wellbeing of people connected with the music event and festival, nightlife and social hotspot scene.
DanceWize still managed to deliver onsite services at 12 events, over a total of 21 days.
This included 10 Victorian events and expanded the program’s reach to deliver 2 service offerings in the Northern Territory (NT), including a full-scale pilot that included care, education, roving, and gender-based violence services at Bass in the Grass - a large-scale music event in Darwin. This was a collaboration with the NT Health Department, other local stakeholders, and NUAA’s DanceWize NSW. This relationship is ongoing and is representative of the continual growth of HRVic’s DanceWize program model, which is recognised as a leading model of care for peer-based harm reduction in music event and festival settings.
Through innovations including local hotspot outreach (In parks and reserves as we came out of lockdown) face-to-face service delivery was able to continue throughout the 2020 and 2021.
While events attended dropped dramatically in 2020-21 compared to 2019-20, they were similar numbers to previous years.
Above: DanceWize in Edinburgh Gardens, Fitzroy
In 2021, HRVic DW was also approached by health service stakeholders and community leaders Queensland, Western Australia, and Tasmania to support local event harm reduction initiatives. This ranged from volunteer training and stakeholder engagement through to full service delivery. HRVic DW continues to have strong ties with the DW NSW team.
Gender-Based Violence Service
In 2020-21 an internal evaluation of the DanceWize Gender-Based Violence (GBV) Service 2016-19 was completed and submitted to DOH. The evaluation found that this service is part of the future of DW services at events and festivals and we consider it a strategic priority area, as the service enhances and integrates with the longstanding peer-based alcohol and other drug (AOD) DanceWize model. It also meets a needs gap to support event organisers and patrons to reduce the impact of AOD and Gender-Based Violence and other related harms on the public health and community service system, while promoting health, mental health and wellbeing.
In addition to face-to-face service delivery, in 2020-21 we did some strategic planning and consolidated our internal systems. Volunteers now have access to a closed platform where they can complete our suite of trainings as e-modules.
We enhanced our public online presence as well, providing live online education and creating popular campaigns.
We also did significant advocacy and consultation work in a range of areas, including Parliamentary submissions and participation in the Public Intoxication Reform Advisory Groups.
We have provided input into a range of drug alert/early warning system models in Victoria and nationally.
As we write this report it seems as though the festival scene is re-awakening - here's hoping!