Keep your customers and staff safe. Protect your venue. Boost your bottom line.
Get Accredited
Take the next step in raising safeguarding standards in your venue by maintaining high-quality safeguarding practices on the ground.
Get Trained
Join us in bringing together night-time communities to change how night venues are perceived, promoting safety and confidence for customers.
Shape The Industry
Join a coalition of industry leaders and specialists, united in strengthening safeguarding measures and aligning objectives to protect our communities.
GET ACCREDITED
We’re Empowering the Night-Time Community
The NSSA is all about raising the bar for safeguarding in the UK’s night-time economy. We’re here to make sure venue staff feel confident and capable and that business owners take responsibility for keeping their customers and teams safe.
Accreditation Partners
Five Pillars of Excellence
1. Policy in Action
Safeguarding Policy & Practice – Policy is embedded into day-to-day operations.
- Staff understand the policy and can explain how it works in practice
- “What good looks like” scenarios used in staff briefings
2. Staff Competency
Training, Response & Culture – Staff are equipped, confident, and proactive
- Staff can describe how to intervene and where to escalate.
- Staff know how to de-escalate with civility and care.
- Clear welfare roles in place on event nights.
3. Customer Experience
Safety, Inclusion & Welfare – Customers feel safe, supported, and respected.
- Customers feel confident to report issues.
- Frontline staff reflect venue values of care and inclusivity.
- Systems in place for lone/vulnerable patron support at close.
4. Partnership & Community
Local Links & External Collaboration – Venue works with others to strengthen safety.
- Venue regularly attends local safety or partnership meetings.
- Emergency services recognise the venue as safe and collaborative.
- Feedback from partners contributes to venue improvement.
5. Continuous Improvement
Reflection, Learning & Leadership – the venue is reflective, open, and adaptable.
- Venue can show how an incident led to change.
- Leadership champions a people-first, safety-first culture.
- Safeguarding is part of induction and embedded in team values.
How the Accreditation Works
The accreditation process is designed to be practical, clear, and supportive.
Step 1: Register your venue
Complete the short registration form, make payment via Stripe, and tell us about your venue. Your Hopsy account is created within 24 hours, and you’ll receive a welcome email with toolkits and a booking link for your onboarding call.
Step 2: Kickstart with Your Onboarding Call
Join a 45-minute call with your NSSA representative to explore the 5 Pillars of Excellence, how the NSSA Compliance App works, and onboard to the Uniteverse Platform for real-time customer feedback, staff communication, and safety intelligence.
Step 3: Set Up and Assessment
With support from NSSA and Hopsy, upload your policies, risk assessments, and training records, then complete your digital self-assessment within 7 days using our guided toolkit.
Step 4: Results and Action Plan
An NSSA representative will visit your venue to observe live operations, assess staff readiness, and observe safeguarding in action.
You’ll receive a compliance score, safeguarding report, and tailored action plan, followed by a dedicated meeting to review outcomes and agree next steps toward full accreditation.
Step 5: Launch Your Safe Space
Show your venue means business when it comes to safety. You’ll get:
- An Accreditation certificate, the NSSA’s stamp of approval
- Stickers and signage that lets everyone know they’re in safe hands.
- Digital presence: logos, social media graphics, email signature icons, website listing
Want to boost your rep, protect your team, and pull in more customers? This is how you do it – safely.
Compliance & Scoring System
Venues are assessed on a 4-point compliance scale:
- Non-Compliant: No safeguarding training or policies in place.
- Limited Compliance: Safeguarding is applied inconsistently.
- Partially Compliant: Gaps identified, action required.
- Fully Compliant: Exceeds safeguarding standards.
Venues scoring 3 or below in any critical area must take corrective action to retain accreditation.
“Nobody is in nightlife for the paperwork!”
Hopsy will help you turn the good stuff on paper into habits your team can follow on shift.
That means less hassle, more headspace, and an easier way to stay up to scratch with national campaigns like Ask for Angela and the Women’s Night Safety Charter. It’s practical, straightforward, and it makes everyone’s job easier from managers to floor staff.
“Safeguarding with a social twist”
UniteVerse puts safeguarding front and centre, keeping venues, staff, and guests connected using real-time, community-led insights. See what’s working, what isn’t, and and how to make your business more open, inclusive, and accountable.
Act in the moment, and not just when the next assessment rolls around. Because good safeguarding doesn’t wait.
GET TRAINED
Optional Training That Levels Up Safeguarding – Built Around the Night Safe Spaces Framework
Training isn’t just a box to tick, it’s how we level up. It builds confidence, sharpens instincts, and makes safeguarding part of the culture. Not just a rule, but how we roll
Workshops & Seminars
As part of your NSSA Accreditation, you’ll complete the below NSSA essential workshops:
- Intro to NSSA: Beyond Quick Fixes – Proactive Safeguarding.
- Workshop 1: Night Safe Spaces – Embedding Accountability in Safeguarding and Training.
- Workshop 2: Strengthening Incident Response & Crime Prevention.
- Workshop 3: Making Safeguarding Policies Work in Practice.
- Workshop 4: Inclusive Safeguarding – Strategies for Diversity.
- Workshop 5: Emergency First Aid Preparedness.
Workshops can also be purchased individually.
Training to Support Your Accreditation
We offer tailored training across all key focus areas to help you work towards Night Safe Spaces Accreditation. From safeguarding and welfare engagement to VAWG, spiking, inclusivity, and incident management, our sessions are practical, flexible, and built around your needs.
We can deliver the training directly, work with your in-house team, or connect you with trusted providers, whatever works best for you and your venue.
Night Safe Champion: Welfare Engagement Officer Training
This practical training is built for frontline staff who help create safer nighttime spaces. Based on the NSSA’s five pillars of excellence, it ensures consistent, high-quality safeguarding across your venue.
We can tailor the training around your existing policies and practices, making it relevant, streamlined, and focused on what matters most to your team.
Recognising Existing Training
If your venue already provides training in areas like drug awareness or mental health first aid, these can be recognised as part of your accreditation.
Streamlining Certification
Relevant security or health and safety qualifications can count towards accreditation, reducing duplication.
Collaborative Approach
We work with existing training providers to integrate their expertise into the programme.
Tailored to Your Venue
Your existing safeguarding policies can be built into the training, ensuring they reflect local challenges and venue-specific needs.
SHAPE THE INDUSTRY
Become a safeguarding partner
We’re inviting organisations, experts, and leaders to become Safeguarding Partners within the NSSA Coalition, an industry-led group focused on shaping guidance, developing practical tools, and enhancing the safeguarding competencies of people working across venues, events, and night-time spaces.
Whether your focus is spiking prevention, harm reduction, VAWG, accessibility, or staff welfare, this is your opportunity to align with an industry-led framework and help drive real, lasting change in how we create safer, more inclusive nightlife environments.
Join a coalition of industry leaders and specialists, united in strengthening safeguarding measures and aligning objectives to protect our communities.
JOIN THE PILOT
We’re accepting a small group of venues to participate in the Night Safe Spaces Accreditation (NSSA) pilot. This is your chance to help shape a safeguarding framework built by the industry, for the industry, practical, people-focused, and rooted in what already works. As a pilot venue, you’ll:
- Get early access to the NSSA framework and self-assessment toolkit.
- Receive customised resources, training options, and policy templates.
- Access 1-to-1 guidance and expert support throughout.
- Join a growing network of venues and professionals committed to safety.
- Help test and improve the accreditation process ahead of the national launch.
Ready to Get Involved?
We’re onboarding venues for the pilot phase ahead of the national launch. If you’re interested in getting involved – or just want to learn more – we’d love to have a quick chat.
GET IN TOUCH
Have questions? Want to learn more? Don’t hesitate and contact us today: