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The Film TV Charity has chosen World Mental Health Day 2022 to publish their Mind-Craft report.

The report explores the factors that are associated with the mental wellbeing of people working behind the scenes in the film, TV and cinema industry. It is based on responses to the second edition of the Looking Glass survey conducted by the charity, who are keen to better understand how working life impacts on the mental health and wellbeing of the workers they support.

Select were delighted to be approached by the Film TV Charity who were looking to conduct a more in-depth analysis of the survey responses: to build on and delve further than the headline findings.

We worked with members of the charity’s research team to identify aspects of working life that they hypothesised (based on the charity’s own empirical experience and other research) were associated with positive and negative mental wellbeing. We identified which questions in the survey best measured these aspects. We then used factor analysis to group questions with related responses into a smaller number of factors, thereby capturing economically a large amount of the information contained in the dataset.

Following this we tested the hypotheses using a statistical model. The Looking Glass survey included a series of questions that comprise an established measure of mental wellbeing: the Short Warwick Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale, and so our model could explore the associations with this embedded measure.

Our model showed that the main contributor to mental wellbeing was loneliness (which has also been found to be a key driver of wellbeing in research conducted outside the film and TV sector), followed by a number of aspects of working life measured by the survey, principally: opportunities for career development; the culture, values and the way people communicate in a workplace; whether the respondent was struggling financially; and their work-life balance.

Reflecting on the work, Jo said “It was great to work with colleagues at FTVC. By combining our analytical skills with FTVC’s knowledge and experience of their industry, we created a model that provided valuable insight. The results have prompted many conversations and discussions, supported by anecdotal evidence, which is helping the charity broaden the support they can offer.”