As we come to the end of a challenging year, we are very proud to announce that we have launched an Employee Assistance Programme that will be accessible to TLC staff and to all 90 of TLC’s freelance Readers and Mentors.
TLC’s group of Readers and Mentors are vital to the running of the organisation. Two thirds of the current reader cohort has worked with TLC for 10 years or more, a testament to the spirit of loyalty among our cherished freelancers, and we hope also a testament to a working relationship that has been strong across the 24 years that we have been in operation. We have been very lucky to work with some of the best editors in the industry, and our client testimonials and publishing success stories are proof that their feedback has been instrumental in transforming the creative output – and in some cases the lives – of the writers we work with.
As we approach our 25th anniversary in 2021, we have been doing a lot of thinking about the importance of putting wellbeing first. The pandemic has highlighted this, and through our programme – including the Inspiration Page which we commissioned during lockdown, and the Being A Writer platform which offers a space for writers to focus on cultivating creativity and building resilience – we are looking at new ways to approach events and services for writers. We are excited to announce more about what we have in development in due course as part of TLC’s public programme, but for now, this EAP is one way we would like to give back to the freelancers who have given so much to us over the years. They are the lifeblood of TLC, and we are immensely grateful to them for their consistently brilliant service to the writing community.
The TLC Employee Assistance Programme is offered by Wellbeing Solutions Ltd, and includes access to a 24-hour telephone hotline for one-to-one counselling with trained health professionals, and an online portal with resources relating to wellbeing and personal issues. The programme will be evaluated after the first year of use, to ensure it’s offering the best possible support system to our staff and editing freelancers.
