Hostile Environment Safety Training (HEST/HEAT) 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 as their needs and working practices are generally very different.
Our Hostile Environment Safety Courses focus on training the individual in order to identify and be aware of the risks at the earliest opportunity in order to take action to avoid or manage that risk, so they can undertake the task in hand. The training is generally a minimum of 2 days residential course and can be as long as 5 days.
For the last 20 years, we have held the Hostile Environment Safety Awareness Training (HEST/HEAT/HEFAT) contract for the European Broadcast Union (EBU) Academy, delivering 5-day training courses. Training media professionals including journalists, from all the major European Broadcasters including: ARD, NOS, NRK, RAI, BBC, SR, VRT.
During our HEST courses for journalists, freelance journalists, and reporters, we appreciate the need to ensure the course has a strong journalistic focus. Therefore, one of our instructors is always a journalist. We are fortunate to be supported by Robert Adams, a cameraman with over 25 years of frontline reporting, Eric Feitjen and Peter Ter Velde. Both Eric and Peter have years of experience with Dutch television broadcaster NOS. We have also delivered training courses for Daily Telegraph, Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday, Channel 4 and Trinity Mirror Group.
For NGOs, charities, business travellers, large corporations, church groups, we focus more on working in the local environment and with local communities. For journalists, reporters, cameramen and media teams, 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.
The January 6th. attack on the U.S. Capitol building put a new focus on the safety of journalists based in America. In this U.S. election year, We are offering, in conjunction with the EBU Academy, American-based correspondents of EBU members an opportunity to learn how to better protect themselves in civil unrest situations. Our 4 hour online course will equip you with the knowledge to identify threats and reduce any risks to you and your crew’s personal safety. Training delivered online using instructor-led discussion, presentation, video examples and interactive teaching.
Course Dates: 3rd June 2024 or 4th June 2024
Course Outline:
Highlighting the importance of good teamwork.
Threat awareness – exploring the nature and sources of threats.
Theories of safe movement and positioning.
Reducing the risk from physical assault including practical demonstration of dealing with the threats of physical assault.
How to extract from a dense crowd as a team.
Reducing the risk from missiles.
Theory in safe movement when operating in the middle of a volatile situation.
Reducing the risk from crushing.
The importance of personal appearance, positioning, equipment, and branding.
Appropriate safety equipment, fire retardant clothing and professional security.
Petrol Bomb (Molotov cocktail) awareness and dealing with the threat.
Policing Civil Disorder - A presentation and practical look at how public order incidents are policed and the effect this may have on the media
Check out the HOSTILE ENVIRONMENT SAFETY TRAINING course for more detail.
