Individual courses

TTF Safety First! Online Courses ©

The TTF Safety First! Online Courses © promote safe working conditions by providing information, tools, and resources to recognize potential hazards and minimize risks. Case studies from the various crafts are included, making the curriculum relevant across the IATSE workforce.

1. Introduction to Basic Entertainment Safety

This course provides a general introduction to the world of workplace health and safety. It explains why worker health and safety is important, why injuries and illnesses occur in the workplace, effective injury and illness prevention programs, methods of hazard identification and control, and strategies to promote health and safety.

2. Biological Hazards

This course is for anyone whose work may involve potential exposure to diseases carried by blood or other bodily materials. It includes topics that cover transmission pathways, work practice controls, hazard communication, emergency reporting and response, and post-exposure follow-up.

3. Hazard Communication: Workplace Chemicals

This course explains what defines a chemical as hazardous to health and safety, what makes a toxic chemical more likely to cause harm to human health, how toxic chemicals affect the body, characteristics of a chemical that can make it hazardous to human health and safety, basic concepts of hazard communications, ventilation, and worker right to information. This module also reviews Global Harmonization Systems.

4. Chemical Protection

This course builds on hazard communication and addresses the hierarchy of controls to protect the body from chemical exposure. Topics covered include routes of exposure to chemicals, strategies to reduce chemical exposure, hierarchy of controls, and personal protective equipment.

5. Electrical Safety

This course covers basic electrical safety. Topics include, but are not limited to, recognition and mitigation of electrical hazards, cable protection, electrical safety devices, distribution equipment, and grounding.

6. Fall Prevention and Protection

This course provides an overview of the safe practices pertaining to fall prevention and fall protection while working on the ground or at heights. Topics covered include housekeeping, slips and trips, the hierarchy of controls, ladder safety, travel restraint and fall arrest systems, as well as specifics related to elevated work platforms, rigging, and scaffold safety.

7. Mobile Elevating Work Platforms

This course covers mobile elevating work platform safety and use. Topics covered include types of MEWPs, loads, inspections, fall hazards, and electrical hazards.

8. Scaffold Safety

This course provides an overview of the use of scaffolds in a trade context. Topics include types of scaffolds, scaffold hazards and controls, and fall protection.

9. Ergonomics

This course explains the causes of musculoskeletal injuries (MSIs), the basics of body mechanics, primary and secondary risk factors to MSIs, control of ergonomic risk factors, and elements of ergonomic hazard analyses. 

10. Noise Exposure

This course explains the effects and controls of noise exposure. It explains basic ear anatomy, the components that make up sound, hearing disorders, noise controls, and elements of an effective hearing conservation program.

11. Confined Space/Small Space Awareness

This course describes safe practices while working in confined or small spaces. Topics covered include legal definitions of confined spaces as compared with small spaces, physical and atmospheric hazards, physical and atmospheric controls, elements of an effective confined space entry program, and rescue plans.

12. Firearms Safety

This course covers inspection, safe handling, and precautions to be taken when working with or around firearms.

13. Hand and Portable Power Tools

This course explains the inspection, care, and maintenance of equipment, as well as electrical hazards and important operational safety precautions for this equipment. 

14. Compressed Gases

This course gives an overview of compressed gas/fuel cylinders. Topics include filling various types of cylinders, an overview of potential dangers, and general safety procedures applicable to working with compressed gas/fuel cylinders.

15. Rigging Safety

This course provides an overview of terminology and safe practices as they pertain to the methodology and materials used for rigging in the entertainment industry.

16. Welding and Cutting

This course covers the use of welding and cutting equipment. Topics include the proper selection, use, inspection, and care of equipment.

17. Hazard Identification and Safety in the Work Environment

This course was designed to identify, give basic information, and share resources on hazards found in work environments. The main course presents an overview of situation awareness strategies and how they can be used to identify hazards. Once the main course is completed, users can choose from 40 different mini-courses on numerous workplace hazards that allow participants to customize the learning experience to their needs.

18. Pandemic Safety

The purpose of this course is to increase awareness of pandemic safety in the workplace by describing what pandemics are and how to prevent exposure to infectious agents on the job. Topics include how pathogens, like viruses and bacteria, spread diseases from person-to-person, and the different types of pandemic illnesses. The course is intended for all IATSE workers in all crafts.

19. Recommended Sanitation Practices for Make-up and Hair

This course is intended to help artists and stylists learn how to implement sanitation best practices into their daily process to ensure the health and safety of themselves and the performers they work with. Artists and stylists will learn about common infectious agents often encountered in the workplace and how to properly sanitize, disinfect, and sterilize their tools, products, and specialty items while working in the trailer, background processing, on set, and in the theater.

20. Wardrobe and Costume Department Safety

This awareness course provides workers with information regarding craft-specific safety and health hazards that may occur in the workplace. Topics include ergonomics, fall prevention, small space awareness, electrical safety, chemical protection, safe sanitation and laundry practices, and more.

Download full course descriptions ↓

How do we apply?

The TTF Safety First! © courses are available in two formats:

IATSE Workers: Individual workers can take the online courses in whichever order they'd like and start or stop at any point and pick up where they left off on any computer or mobile device. The TTF Safety First! © courses are one of many libraries available with a TTF Courses & Resources Learning Platform account.

Email your completed application to onlinecourses@iatsetrainingtrust.org. We will email your unique password within a few days. Use this password to log into your account and start taking courses.

Local Unions: Local trainers approved to use the TTF Safety First! © curriculum can access the Instructor Led Training (ILT) platform to teach in a group setting using audio narration. Trainers can facilitate interactive group courses by muting the narration if they wish or pausing to discuss their own subject matter experiences.

A local officer will submit the completed application to onlinecourses@iatsetrainingtrust.org. We will email your local's credentials and a link to the Instructor Led Training (ILT) site. Use your local username and password to log into your account and start presenting courses.