The Safety Team and First Aid are both part of the Safety Division. The Safety Team is located in Paine (near the Gift Shop on the lobby level).
The Safety Team is Arisia's team of nerds who have studied how to resolve emotionally challenging and dangerous situations and are volunteering to be sober, aware, and ready to help in case of a situation that compromises the safety of any convention member.
The Safety Team aims to be a group you can come to in any situation you are concerned about. They are trained in areas including de-escalation, crowd control, bystander training and situational awareness, CPR, and first aid. Safety Team members go through the Boston Area Rape Crisis Center (BARCC) workshops. They also have contact information for Medical and the Incident Response Team at all times, and also at times act as triage for these two groups. The ultimate goal of all Safety Team members is to be a safe person; someone who sees trouble before it happens and is ready to help in any physical or emotional emergency.
You will likely see Safety Team members traveling the con in small groups. These groups are composed of members with an assortment of complementary skills, to be prepared for as many circumstances as possible. Safety members spread throughout the con, checking hallways, back doors and stairs, and other areas of the hotel. During most of Arisia, the Safety Team will keep a team by the Con Suite and another near the Dealers Room.
A Safety Team member can be recognized by a brightly colored (Dayglo yellow) safety vest, a Safety Team badge, and a black ribbon labeled "Safety" attached to their staff badge.
The Safety Team will happily take volunteers and train them to become Safety Team members. The Volunteer form is at https://www.arisia.org/VolunteerSignup. This is a challenging, multi-part, and incredibly rewarding process. New volunteers need not worry about immediately being thrust into the most difficult situations. Any new Safety Team member is slowly introduced into the ways we maintain Con safety in order both to manage the stress on the volunteer as well as ensure that Arisia attendees are always being safeguarded by well-trained and experienced members of our Safety team.
If you have been wanting to develop some emergency response skills consider asking a member of the Safety Team how to go about it. You might learn something really amazing!
