Raising Films, an organization for parents and carers in UK film and TV, has published a report entitled “Raising our Game: Next Steps for the UK Film and Television Industry.” According to a press release from the company, the study “outlines the case for providing better support for parents and carers” and presents checklists “providing tangible measures to put equality, diversity, and inclusion into practice.”
Continuing the work of Raising Films’ 2016 Making It Possible Survey, “Raising our Game” includes the data from six months of qualitative research with industry workers and leaders, academics, and stakeholders.
“Today we present our most wide-reaching piece of research,” announced Raising Films founder and “The Levelling” writer-director Hope Dickson Leach. “A report that examines and underlines the effects that the casualization of labor combined with a lack of knowledge around rights and best practice, and often underlined by the assumption that working in the sector is a ‘privilege,’ have had on our workforce.”
As Leach suggested, the report concludes that parents and carers are more likely to be “vulnerable to unregulated working practices” due to lack of opportunity. Working parents and carers often have to take whatever job they can get, even if the conditions are unsatisfactory.
“Raising our Game” also presents three recommendations for ensuring a more inclusive, diverse, and worker-friendly entertainment industry: “a robust framework of accountability to support all workers’ rights,” HR and employment procedures that “meet the equality duty and legal framework,” and self-documentation and self-regulation “to prevent unfair and unlawful employment practices” in the entertainment industry.
“This is a hugely significant report which confirms the anecdotal experiences of so many freelancers working within the film and TV industries,” Raising Films Advisory Board member Sara Putt explained. “The call for accountability and the professionalizing of employment practices can, if effectively adopted, radically alter the face of the our industry, making it truly inclusive and allowing the opportunity for all those working in it to achieve a far more satisfactory work/life balance.”
This winter Raising Films held an Industry Summit to discuss the state of working conditions for parents and carers in the entertainment industry. The organization also unveiled the Family Support Fund, the first financial support program dedicated to UK screen professionals’ caring costs.
Visit Raising Films’ website to find out more about the organization and “Raising our Game.”
