Helping Children Thrive On Set and how being able to observe and act on your findings can really make a different

Over the years my role has developed and. I work very closely with young cast now.

We have a duty of care to safeguard them but I feel we have a duty of care to help young actors develop and thrive when in our care.

We do this by building positive relationships with them sharing our experience with them and guiding them on set.

We help build confidence to ask questions, challenge themselves and understand a working set but at the same time we manage to do this in a relaxing calm environment so they can thrive and deliver outstanding performances.

No matter if it’s on set, in education setting or at a sports event my aim is also to support young people to achieve their goals in a nurturing environment.

In the past I would work with children,education specialists and parents to develop care plans, behaviour or learning plans and the 1st thing I would is observe the child in several situations and start forming a report.

How they settle, what they like doing, how do they like to learn, do they have a particular area they enjoy, do they enjoy listening to instructions or doing an activity to learn.

You also listen to them and engage with to build up trust and respect once you spend time with them have all the information you need you can start to plan how to help the child to reach goals, milestones and learn specifically tailored for them to succeed.

I often use these techniques when working with young actors.

Once I have a clear picture I can talk to the production and get the support put in place to help young actors thrive.

This is a very individual way to support young cast and means getting to know them at the earliest stage possible.

But it benefits everyone from a production side you can get most of information from me before filming starts so you can start filming quickly with confident and well supported young cast giving fantastic performances from day one.

You need to have set skill set to do this years of observational reports and how to observe children naturally an understanding of learning processes and developmental milestones. But just as important is being able to engage with children to be able to actively listen to them and for them to feel comfortable around you. You need to build trust and respect and be able to get on so they know you are there to support them. On a final note every time you do this it’s different you can learn what works well but children are so unique and changing constantly the way we support them to thrive changes on each set