Bectu lends its voice to campaign for healthy working practices in film and TV

Bectu is proud to support the Film and TV Charity’s The Whole Picture Toolkit: For Mentally Healthy Productions, launched today as part of the next phase of its 12-month behaviour change campaign to redefine working culture in the film and TV industry.

A free to use website, The Whole Picture Toolkit has been created by the charity and a coalition of industry partners and bodies, freelancers, individual trailblazers, mental health experts, and sector practitioners, including Bectu.

The Toolkit gives clear guidance, expert advice, and resources to highlight examples of industry best practice to help embed mental health and wellbeing on productions of all sizes.

Head of Bectu Philippa Childs participated in the Film and TV Charity’s working group to collate these resources, which aim to give anyone working in production – from those working on large scale productions to those operating on a shoestring – the tools they may need to improve working environments and the industry’s wider approach to mental health.

The Toolkit also incorporates Bectu’s recently launched welfare policy, initiated by Bectu members working in film and TV production, which provides a model mental health, stress and wellbeing policy for companies working in the film and TV sector. You can download the policy here and an editable template for companies to use and adapt is available here.

The launch of the Toolkit comes after the charity unveiled its Let’s Reset behaviour change campaign in October 2021, calling on leaders from across the industry to commit to the action needed to improve wellbeing and to destigmatise the conversation about mental health. The Whole Picture Toolkit is the key to how the industry can start to action changes.

Head of Bectu Philippa Childs said:

“There is a real problem around mental health in film and TV, and so this piece of work has been really crucial for pulling together all of the resources across the industry, that productions can use to make sure they support their freelancers, and make sure that it is a healthy production.

“We want to be part of the solution to bring the industry into a place where people are not suffering quite so badly.”

To find out more, or to start using The Whole Picture Toolkit, visit www.wholepicturetoolkit.org.uk

Find out more about the charity and the support services it offers anyone working behind the scenes in film, TV and cinema by visiting www.filmtvcharity.org.uk