The project „SubFAN': Transforming Social Work with Drug Consuming Football Fans into Digital Health Prevention

Young adults and adolescents go through different psychosocial stages. These stages are commonly described by how young adults and adolescents bond with or distance themselves from parents, peer groups and attachment figures of any kind. While the influence of parents and attachement figures decreases over time, peer groups become more and more important The football fan scene in Germany is by far the largest subcultural scene for adolescents and young adults. Every club in the professional football leagues has a committed groups of fans, organized in football fan clubs or even fan groups like ,Ultras' and hooligans. A previous study (Deimel et al. 2019, Deimel & Köhler 2020) has shown that football fans in Germany are more likely to consume alcohol, cannabis and other illegal drugs (i.e. cocaine, amphetamine) in settings, that lead to an increased outlet of violence in football settings (e.g. stadium visits, organized fights or even spontaneous street fights between opposing fans). Therefore, drug prevention and consulting settings need to focus on the special needs of young football fans. Although there are many social workers working closely in the field of the described scene, there is a need to provide low-threshold social consulting settings by developing an online platform which operates anonymously. This newly developed approach contributes to a drug and health prevention which, in the context of the largest subcultural scene in Germany, is yet to be established. Within the context of the described project SubFAN, social workers of the so-called ,fan projects', who are institutionally established by the German Football, are working closely with young football fans. They accompany them through their day-to-day life in football fan culture. Their support includes face-to-face consultations. As a part of the project SubFan the participating social workers of ten fanprojects (out of 15 in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany) are trained specifically in motivational interviewing and communication in online consulting. The aim of the talk is to show the development of the project and its transformation from consulting face-to-face to an online platform (www.fansupport.de) that supports drug consuming football fans in the fan scenes. Furthermore, we will give insights in the process of transforming social work into a digital health prevention and show first results of our research within the football fan scene as well.