Welfare & Duty of Care Essentials

As part of the Your life at work strand, we're offering training aimed at sharing workplace best practice as well as how you and your teams can stay healthy, happy, and productive at work. 

This free to attend course is designed and delivered  by highly experienced psychotherapists who work both as mental health professionals and in the film and tv industry.

It will cover the essentials needed to support contributors and understand responsibilities around duty of care and welfare in Unscripted throughout the production timeline, from development, casting and through to post and broadcast. 

This course will look at the key issues and how best to safeguard all involved and support good mental health. It will be delivered using a blend of experiential learning and anonymous case studies from the course leaders current client base.

If you are passionate about creating a healthy and safe working environment and ensuring due care is taken over the welfare and dignity of participants then this course is for you.

Who it's for

The course is aimed at anyone working in unscripted TV who wishes to expand their knowledge of best practice when working with contributors and support and safeguard all those taking part in programmes.

This training programme will run 12 times across the year with sessions hosted as part of the Your Life at Work strand in November, February , May and August.

The majority of the USF online short course offering is for those at early career stage and above. As a result, we generally require applicants to have at least 3 credits (unless working in a traditionally uncredited role). If you strongly feel you would still benefit from the training, please email USF@screenskills.com so we can assess if an exception should be made.

We are committed to ensuring all our courses are accessible to everyone. This course is designed to be as interactive as possible. Please email the above address if you have any access requirements and we will be delighted to help, be that clarifying the form such interaction is likely to take or discussing reasonable adjustments.

Trainers

This programme will be delivered by a fully qualified psychotherapist and industry professionals - Rebecca Day MBACP / Sarah McCaffrey MBACP

Both trainers work professionally with productions, broadcasters and other creative organisations to advise on best practices with regard to meeting their duty of care and also offer therapeutic support to individuals working in the sector.

Rebecca Day - Film in Mind

Film In Mind advocates for better mental health in the film industry, providing consultation and therapy for the filmmaking community  blending years of experience working in independent documentaries with a tailored psychotherapeutic approach.
 
Sarah McCaffrey - Solas Mind 
 
Solas Mind is the go-to mental health company in the film and tv industry with a team of over 40 practitioners providing professional, bespoke, therapeutic support services to production companies, studios, crew, and creative freelancers both in the UK and Internationally.
Project consultation services include coaching or counselling support, on-site wellbeing practitioners, mental health risk assessments, wellbeing workshops, Mental Health and Suicide First Aid courses.

What it covers

Ofcom’s two new rules to ensure that participants in television and radio shows are properly looked after are :

• Due care must be taken over the welfare, wellbeing, and dignity of participants in programmes.
• Participants must not be caused unjustified distress or anxiety by taking part in programmes or by the broadcast of those programmes.

This course will look at processes involved in casting and producing to ensure this enhanced duty of care is met.

We will look at :

• Pre-production – Best practice for undertaking in-depth background and medical checks and thorough risk assessments, particularly in relation to mental health and wellbeing.
• Gaining consent and ongoing consent – why is this essential.
• Risk assessments - who should you use – what is the difference between a psychologist and a psychotherapist?
• Recognising the difference between support for the participants and support for the crew when working with vulnerable participants or traumatic material.
• During production – best practice for providing effective support and counselling, with participants able to privately raise their concerns.
• Post-production – how to best support individuals in what is often the most challenging time when public interest is heightened. 

By the end of this training course participants will have:

• An in depth understanding of best practice when working with contributors in unscripted.
• Shared their knowledge, experience and questions with colleagues and peers.
• Have the benefit of a peer support network.

How to apply

This session will take place online via Zoom. Click ‘apply now’ at the top of the page and follow the instructions to apply for your place: you must login or register before you are able to complete your application.

If you need additional support to complete your application or require the application form in an alternative format please contact USF@screenskills.com

Places on these free online courses are limited and applications are often highly competitive. To stand the best chance of securing a place, please be sure to consider the following:

• When asked to list your three most recent credits, please include the programme title and your job role.
• When asked what you hope to gain from the course, please be concise but ensure you cover the specific elements of the topic you would like to gain knowledge of and what gaps in your skillset you believe the course may address. A rewording of the course title or a general comment on career progression does not tell us much about how this course would benefit you.

If you are no longer able to attend, we ask you to please use the “decline ticket” function on the right hand side of the page so that we can release your place. Our sessions are often oversubscribed, so we’d like to give other freelancers the opportunity to fill available spots. Thank you for your consideration.

This session is supported by the ScreenSkills Unscripted TV Skills Fund which invests in training for the unscripted workforce thanks to contributions from broadcasters, SVoDs and production companies.

This course would normally cost participants to attend, but thanks to this support, we are able to offer it to you for free. If you fail to attend, we reserve the right to request reimbursement of costs, unless your place can be taken by someone else.