Draft
Safer festivals through PsyCare
Festivals are places of connection, music, and shared experiences. But in environments where psychoactive substances are present, some people can face overwhelming or challenging situations.
PsyCare provides compassionate, specialized support for people facing these difficulties during their festival experience. Our approach is to minimize risks and prevent harm through education, prevention, and care, as well as by offering calm, supportive spaces and trained volunteers on site. PsyCare helps ensure that difficult experiences can be addressed early, safely, and with care, framed in our goal of safer and more supportive festival environments for everyone.
Bringing science-based psychological support and drug education to Swiss festivals
ALPS is a Swiss non-profit organization dedicated to psychedelic education, research, and responsible public dialogue around psychoactive substances. As part of this mission, ALPS is taking over and continuing the important harm-reduction work previously carried out by Eve & Rave.
Much of our work focuses on scientific exchange and education in academic and professional settings. But we believe education should not stop there. Psychedelic education must also reach the environments where these substances are actually being used.
Our newest initiative, ALPS PsyCare, brings this mission directly into festival environments. This serves our new project as the perfect platform to combine scientific knowledge, community engagement, and compassionate care. When people know that non-judgmental support is available, they are more likely to seek help early. This can prevent small problems from becoming serious incidents.
What the funding will support
To make PsyCare possible, we aim to raise 15,000 CHF. This funding will go directly into the planning, preparation, and on-site implementation of PsyCare services at festivals.
The money will be used for: • training and preparation of volunteers • harm-reduction and educational materials • safer-use information resources • equipment and setup for PsyCare spaces at festivals • logistics and operational costs for our teams
Every contribution helps us build the infrastructure needed to provide reliable harm-reduction and psychological support on site.
If we exceed our funding goal
Additional funding will help us strengthen and expand PsyCare as a harm-reduction initiative. In Switzerland, drug policy is based on four pillars: repression, therapy, prevention, and harm reduction. PsyCare contributes directly to this fourth pillar by supporting people experiencing challenging, psychedelic-influenced states of mind in festival environments.
With additional support we can:
Expand PsyCare to future events
Burning Mountain Festival is just the beginning. A successful implementation will help us establish PsyCare as a model that can support other festivals in the future, including smaller events.
Collect first-hand data on current substance use
It would allow us to collect anonymized insights into the experiences and needs of people seeking support. This data can contribute to research and help improve harm-reduction strategies in Switzerland.
Create options for professionals to gain insights into psychedelic-related contexts
PsyCare can also serve as a learning environment for nurses, social workers, psychologists, psychiatrists, and therapists to gain experience supporting people in altered states of consciousness.
Together, these efforts contribute to safer festivals and stronger evidence-based harm reduction.
