GamCare to offer free training during Safer Gambling Week

The UK charity will give businesses access to online training sessions.

UK.- The safer gambling charity GamCare has announced that it will offer UK businesses access to free online training and briefing sessions during Safer Gambling Week 2020, which is scheduled for November 19-25 

It said it would open its online training modules to businesses to support Safer Gambling Week‘s aim to promote “stimulating open conversations about safer gambling”.

The charity said: “According to a Reed in Partnership report (2016), up to 10 per cent of working adults have experience of problems gambling can cause in the workplace, including loss of concentration, low productivity and absence, criminal activity (including theft and fraud) and impacts on mental wellbeing.”

GamCare said that it also sought to recognise that employment situations had changed drastically as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, with staff potentially facing anxiety due to financial worries, isolation or boredom.

It says it will open its online briefing sessions to all UK businesses to help staff understand how problem-gambling impacts their teams.

It will seek to train employees to spot addictive behaviours and provide advice on how to start conversations on gambling addiction.

Those interested can register for a free GamCare briefing session throughout Safer Gambling Week.

GamCare has also launched a free toolkit for financial institutions, gambling businesses and debt advice agencies to help them identify and support customers experiencing gambling-related financial harms.

Available on the GamCare website, the toolkit was developed with debt charities and agencies, high street banks and gambling businesses.

It features tools on core customer messaging, referral pathway guidelines, guidance on training staff to aid customers impacted by gambling harms, and on how to recognise, support and refer customers to support services.