The year 2020 has not been the year any of us planned, but with extraordinary resilience even parts of industry that were stopped in their tracks by the pandemic are now largely back up and running.
In difficult times, your true purpose comes to the fore - ScreenSkills stepped up and played its part and will continue to do so. Freelancers have described our offer as a ’lifeline’ in keeping the industry connected during lockdown, offering opportunities to upskill, insight and information through commissioner sessions, so democratising access, seminars, masterclasses, and practical classes in finance, mental wellbeing and other relevant support for the freelance community.
There was also the swift development and roll out of the coronavirus basic awareness on production training, designed to keep the industry safe in the context of Covid-19.
In the first six months of this financial year from April to September, ScreenSkills:
- supported 38,461 individuals
- with more than 78,000 interactions
- across 665 events, masterclasses, pieces of training and online learning
The free online coronavirus awareness training alone has been taken by more than 38,000 people to date, with another thousand people taking the free online training designed to address bullying and harassment.
We are now supporting economic recovery and future innovation and growth across the nations and regions by continuing to invest in the skilled and inclusive workforce who are critical to the UK screen industries' success – you can’t make great film, television and animation without investing in the people.
Thanks to industry contributions to our skills funds – in unscripted television, children’s TV, high-end TV, film and animation – and to the BFI, awarding National Lottery funds as part of its Future Film Skills strategy, for making this work possible.
Please share information about our work with friends and colleagues in the industry. We are living through extremely challenging times and we want to ensure that everyone who might benefit from what we do knows what is available.