OutsmartNYC
The Alliance is part of a team of preventionists and nightlife community members facilitating and coordinating the OutSmartNYC program. OutSmartNYC works to combat sexual violence in nightlife spaces and promote a fun, sex-positive nightlife culture where both patrons and staff feel safe to connect in positive, exciting and healthy ways.
OutSmartNYC began in 2008 as a multi-disciplinary citywide effort and has evolved into a grassroots collective of industry staff, patrons, educators, and activists organizing to prevent and end sexual violence in New York City’s nightlife industry.
The OutSmart team is currently made up of representatives from the Alliance, the Crime Victims Treatment Center (CVTC), and various nightlife community members. Because this is a joint effort between service providers and members of the nightlife community, we’re able to draw upon the collective knowledge and experience of the various sub-communities that are committed to helping end sexual violence in the nightlife industry.
Our work consists of two primary goals:
Community Education
- The OutSmartNYC team provides free, venue-specific workshops to any nightlife venue in NYC. The workshops cover sexual violence prevention, bystander intervention, recognizing and addressing identity-based harm, conflict resolution, de-escalation, and more. Each workshop is tailored specifically to the venue through a needs assessment prior to the training. Each training is co-facilitated by a nightlife community member and a consent educator/preventionist. Click here to request a training!
Nightlife Community Building
- The OutSmartNYC team hosts monthly Collective meetings for nightlife folks to build community, share resources, discuss trends and emerging needs in the industry, and participate in continuing education. These meetings are open to anyone in the industry who would like to be involved with OutSmartNYC! For more information about the Collective, sign up for our listserv or reach out to us directly.
- Nightlife community members also create individualized training and spearhead projects in response to emerging needs in the community. Previous projects have focused on harm reduction, LGBTQIA+ inclusion and safety in nightlife, resources and best practices for owners and managers, and more!
To learn more about OutSmartNYC or to request training, visit our website here and follow us on Instagram!