The Film & TV Charity has launched a campaign to address the mental health challenges facing the industry. ‘Let’s Reset’ will run for a year and “tackle the stigma still associated with mental health.”

The ‘Let’s Reset’ campaign

The campaign will challenge stereotypes about mental health and aims to improve the way it is dealt with in the sector to drive greater inclusivity, creativity, diversity, and retention of talent.

The campaign has the support of the organisations that make up The Film and TV Charity’s mental health task force and other leading industry bodies who have pledged to support more open conversations about mental health and wellbeing, indicating to sector workers that this is a top-down approach with buy-in from leadership.

Leaders who support the campaign have pledged to:

• Directly address underlying causes of poor mental health.
  
• Encourage open discussion to challenge unhealthy behaviours.
  
• Put specific support in place, including clear signposting of The Film and TV Charity’s growing suite of support services available to anybody working behind the scenes in film, TV, or cinema.
  
• Highlight the work being done internally and build on work being done by other organisations including BECTU, BAFTA, BFI, Coalition for Change, ScreenSkills and beyond.

News of the campaign’s launch follows the charity’s release of its Looking Glass Survey in 2020 that showed as many as 9 in 10 people working behind the scenes in film and TV had experienced a mental health problem, which was well above the UK average.

The ‘Looking Glass Survey’ findings and updates

The survey also found that “working conditions, industry culture and lack of accessible support create conditions which mean mental health and wellbeing suffer.”

Updates to this survey evidence the ongoing mental health crisis in the sector where “the number of people feeling that the intensity of work is having a negative effect on their mental health has risen by around 20% to four in five in the last 12 months.” Furthermore, only 10% believe the sector is a mentally healthy place to work.

While the campaign is in its awareness-raising stage during the launch, it will move to “showcasing and
amplifying tools and initiatives to improve the support available” through to September 2022.

Alex Pumfrey, CEO of The Film & TV Charity, said: “People in the Film & TV industry are passionate about their craft, but their mental health is too often being strained to breaking point. Unhealthy working hours, bad practices, bullying, racism, harassment, and ableism are too common in an industry we all love, and all of us have a role to play in speaking up to create change.

“It’s time to come together and reset by putting our mental health centre-stage and committing to changing a culture that impacts us all. The Let’s Reset campaign is also an opportunity to ensure individuals are made aware of the support that is available.”

Lucinda Hicks, CEO Banijay UK, one of The Film & TV Charity’s partners, said: “Making sure that Banijay UK is a great place to work is a huge priority for my senior team and me. We want everyone who works with us to feel supported, listened to, empowered and respected.

“From mandatory training initiatives to ensuring teams are aware from day one of the behaviour expectations on set and beyond; encouraging people to call out behaviour and working practices which don’t feel right, either via our confidential whistleblowing line or via open senior channels, to training mental health first aiders across the company. We are working hard to understand the issues and to tackle them head-on so are delighted to be supporting this excellent campaign from The Film and TV Charity.”

To find out more about the ‘Let’s Reset campaign’, please click here.