ScreenSkills is to train a cohort of accessibility coordinators to help producers make productions inclusive disabled crew and talent – a key recommendation from Jack Thorne’s pressure group Underlying Health Condition.
Actor and disability consultant Julie Fernandez and disability advocate Sara Johnson, through her company Bridge06, are preparing a “gold standard” of training.
Applications open in April for the training, which will run in June and July. The aim is that by the end of the year, producers will be able to employ any of up to 12 coordinators from the moment a show is greenlit.
As an individual dedicated to managing the logistics of an inclusive production, they will provide direction and support around content, production base, studio and locations, and will work with heads of department, crew and talent to remove barriers to access.
In a statement, Fernandez and Johnson said they were excited to be building “an army of educated allies”.
They stated: “Disabled people are incredibly creative and have by their very nature as disabled people, had to think outside the box, which makes them great employees with a powerful voice,” adding that the training programme is “further cementing inclusion into the industry through this simple and obvious step to big systemic change”.
The training is funded by ScreenSkills’ High-end TV Skills Fund and addresses a recommendation of Underlying Health Condition’s first report, Everyone Forgot About the Toilets, which was published in December.
Thorne floated the idea in his MacTaggart last August, arguing that the role is as essential as intimacy and Covid coordinators to help TV to “tell more disabled stories and empower more disabled people to tell them”.
