By Annika Norris, BA, Communications Coordinator
At Beck Institute, we provide high-quality Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) and Recovery-Oriented Cognitive Therapy (CT-R) trainings for mental health and health clinicians all over the world. Creating training videos requires all hands on deck, with the help of multiple teams at Beck Institute, along with our independent contractors.
We film twice a year, so about every six months we tap into our network to begin the process of pre-production. After many conversations, we select a topic for a course. We typically choose topics based on feedback we get from our network of clinicians. We try to figure out which topics are most needed. Once we select a topic, we choose a faculty member who is an expert in the condition and/or population. Then it’s often a group effort to create a course outline. Next, we fashion the material into modules and lessons. We make sure to include the latest research and decide where the roundtable discussions and role plays should go. Then we begin a full writing and review process among the faculty member, Assistant Director of CBT Programs Dr. Sofia Chernoff, Dr. Judith Beck, and our instructional design expert, as well as some other members of our team.
Once the course passes the review stage, we start preparing for filming. We work with a small production company based in Philadelphia. Filming typically takes one jam-packed week. One of the biggest challenges is scheduling. Our faculty all see clients, do supervision, help with program design, and participate in lots of other professional activities, so it can be a juggling act to make sure everyone is free. Thank goodness our eLearning Coordinator is so detail oriented. She needs to schedule not only our faculty, but also the production company, makeup and hair stylist, and others, and she is on set all day every day of filming.
Transforming an initial concept into a course is incredibly rewarding. It takes long days of planning, researching, scriptwriting, storyboarding, filming, editing, and coordination. But we are very proud of the final product—excellent courses for clinicians worldwide, who no longer need to travel to Philadelphia to take advantage of our terrific training.