Hostile Environment Safety Training

HOSTILE ENVIRONMENT SAFETY TRAINING COURSES

Hostile Environment Safety Training (also known as HEST/HEAT/HET or HEFAT) courses are bespoke to meet the needs and requirements of the individual and/or organisation. Whilst they are principally attended by media professionals; journalists, reporters and NGOs (or businesses working in high-risk areas) we rarely mix them on our courses as their needs and working practices are generally very different. 

Our Hostile Environment Safety Courses (HEST) focus on training the individual to identify and be aware of the risks at the earliest opportunity in order to take action to avoid and manage that risk, so they can undertake the task in hand. The training is generally a minimum of 2 days and they run for up to 5 days on our residential course.

For the last 21 years, we have held the Hostile Environment Safety Awareness Training (HEST/HEAT/HEFAT) contract for the European Broadcast Union EBU Academy, training media professionals including journalists from many of the major European Broadcasters including: ARD, NOS, NRK, RAI, BBC, SR, RSI and VRT.

During these HEST courses for journalists, freelancers and reporters, we appreciate the need to ensure the course has a strong journalistic focus. Therefore, one of our instructors is always a journalist. Our current team of instructors are: Caroline Neil, Eric Feijten, Grant Wootton & Charlie McGrath. 

We also deliver training courses for Daily Telegraph, Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday, Channel 4 and Trinity Mirror Group. and many others media outlets.

The content of each Hostile environment course is flexible

For NGOs, charities, business travellers, large corporations and church groups, we focus more on working in the local environment and with local communities. For journalists, reporters, cameramen, media teams and drone journalism, especially in conflict zones, the focus is on managing the risks as a journalist or reporter and concentrating on some of the key risks such as the threat from authoritarian regimes through to negotiating checkpoints, mines and IED avoidance.      

Hostile Environment Safety Training (HEST/HEAT): Staying Safe when Overseas