Training for hotels around sex work and guest safety

About this project

Sex workers are a group who are particularly at risk of becoming victims of sexual offending, for a variety of reasons. (These are covered in our Explainer and Bitesize training course 'Issues around sex work'.) As part of their SHADE project around sex worker safeguarding, Northumbria Police asked TDI to draw on their expertise around sex offending to develop a package of training for staff and managers of hotels.

As a result of conversations with hotel managers and staff, the course was expanded to cover other issues around guest and staff safety, responding to the challenges they faced on a day-to-day basis.

The course was launched in 2018 as a stand-alone training package, with the possibility of additional consultation around site policies and procedures. It has since also been included in the Leisurewatch public protection scheme, where hotels can benefit from on-going training of staff, audits of hotels and rooms to help build safety into spaces by design, and a referral process with the Police to allow the sharing of soft-intelligence about concerning, but non-criminal, behaviour.