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COVID-19 and its repercussions highlight the critical need for school-based mental health services. Each year, an estimated 1 in 5 U.S. children experience a mental, emotional, or behavioral disorder, including anxiety, depression, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, and disruptive behavioral…

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It can feel that dealing with your own (teacher) wellbeing is just another thing to add onto the endless list of tasks thrown at us as teachers.

Here, I discuss 7 practical ways teachers can impact their wellbeing positively, whilst teaching it to their students at the same time.

Improve teacher and student wellbeing at the same time by using these simple practical teaching resources:

Student wellbeing is defined in the NSW, Australia Wellbeing Framework as

more than the absence of physical or psychological illness... wellbeing can be described as the quality of a person's life.

Student and teacher wellbeing are closely linked, and both impact student achievement and outcomes.

Adopting some simple practices in the classroom can improve the quality of life for both your students and yourself.

Here are 7 ways to improve both student AND teacher wellbeing:

1. Check In

Improve wellbeing by teaching students to name their feelings. As Dan Siegel says, "If you can name it, you can tame it".

Set up a mood monitor in your class which gives students opportunities to identify how they feel. Follow up with those students who may need additional support by asking them what they need. While you don't have to be the school counsellor, you can give students who are not feeling so great, a chance to take a break, go for a walk or get a drink so that they can then be ready to engage in the learning.

2. Model Self Regulation

Show how you manage your feelings with the students by talking about how you feel and then what you do about it.

For example, you can say, ' I am feeling a bit unfocused at the moment so I am going to breathe deeply and have a drink of water'.

If you are feeling angry or frustrated you could model counting to 10, walking away and taking some space.

3. Teach About Strong Emotions

Hold a class meeting or SEL lesson and have students brainstorm ways to deal with feeling angry or upset such as losing a game on the playground, feeling frustrated with school work or classmates.

Role-play effective strategies to use at this time. Explicitly teaching and practicing these strategies at school, increases the likelihood that you will use them in your personal life too!

4. Gratitude Journals

Gratitude has been proven to increase levels of teacher and student wellbeing. Provide opportunities for students to reflect at the end of the lesson or day on what went well and how they contributed to making good things happen.

Model the behaviour and look after your own level of gratitude at the same time. Share your gratitude stories with your students and demonstrate gratitude to them.

5. Positive Time-Out

Incorporate a calming space in your classroom available for any students to use. Include colouring, playdough, fiddle toys, soft furnishings in a clearly defined space. Teach and practice how to use the area effectively. Using proactive and positive behaviour education tools such as a calming space is beneficial for the teacher.

6. Positive Student Voice

Provide opportunities for students to air their opinions and problem solve issues in the classroom.

Collaborate with students about class, teacher and student expectations giving students a say in how the class is run, what the behaviour management system will look like and how they can help repair and restore when relationships have been damaged.

7. Give Students Choice

Giving choice in what, when and how they work and make it obvious. Having agency in your life is important for a healthy perspective and knowing that you can change your response to the events of your life.

Incorporating wellbeing strategies for your students will promote your wellbeing as a teacher and if your health and happiness are increased so is your effectiveness as an educator, directly impacting student achievement.

Other Resources:
The Power of Rituals in Developing Teacher Wellbeing Self-Talk And Teacher Wellbeing How School Culture Impacts Teacher Wellbeing

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how to improve student and teacher wellbeing at the same time

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How To Improve Student And Teacher Wellbeing At The Same Time

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Student and teacher wellbeing are closely linked, and both impact student achievement and outcomes. Adopting some simple practices in the classroom can improve the quality of life for both your students and yourself.

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Focusing on Student Well-Being in Times of Crisis

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One teacher recommends supporting student safety through three Cs: communication, consistency, and control.

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As adults, we all have diverse needs and different ways of coping with stressful situations. For children, it is the same. Some children will have dealt well with restrictions and school closures caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. For others, it is challenging to cope with all the changes and uncertainty. Some children will return to school having experienced some level of stress, anxiety, isolation and grief. Some may have experienced increased violence at home.

School teachers and personnel are critical in supporting children's transition back to in-person classroom learning, particularly after extended periods of school closure. In addition to continuing to use the different skills teachers have been using to ensure their students' learning and emotional well-being while schools were closed, the following suggestions might be helpful when schools reopen:

1. Listen to children's concerns

COVID-19 and school closures impacted many children and adolescents' mental health and well-being. As teachers, it is essential to listen to students' concerns and demonstrate understanding as well as empathy. Offer your students the opportunity to have a one-to-one conversation with you to reconnect and discuss any concerns that might have arisen when their school was closed. If a child shares anything that is particularly concerning, please follow the protection or child safeguarding systems in place.

2. Check how children are doing

Before teaching new academic content to students, teachers and school personnel should take time to check how children are doing. Remember that children may have difficulty concentrating at first or may need more time to get back into the routine of learning. Provide opportunities for children to take breaks, move around, and re-connect with their friends and peers.

3. Provide children with accurate information around COVID-19

As children return to school, they may have different thoughts and questions about COVID-19. Children want and need factual information. Use child-friendly and age-appropriate resources available in your country/region that is based on scientific evidence to respond to children's questions about COVID-19 accurately.

While it is important to acknowledge the scale of what is happening globally, make sure to emphasize all the efforts made and precautions taken to reduce risks in the school reopening plans. Do not forget to remind children of school safety protocols, including what to do in case there is a COVID-19 case detected in the classroom.

4. Seek suggestions from children on how to create a welcoming, safe and comfortable classroom

Engage children in making the classroom a welcoming, safe and comfortable space. When doing so, make sure to respect school safety procedures and use available material resources.

Children can provide suggestions; help decorate the walls of the classroom with colourful and welcoming messages and work in small groups so they can support each other to catch up on learning. Let them know that being supportive of each other will help them get through this together. Remember to praise children for their contributions and efforts. Teachers can foster feelings of safety and security by interacting and developing positive relationships with each student and using routines during the day to help children feel safe and secure.

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8 ways teachers can support students' mental health during COVID-19 school returns

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Transitioning back to in-person classroom learning during COVID-19

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Schools need a culture of care now more than ever.

Everyone from bus drivers to teachers, to central office staff, to students and their families. Our school communities have been through a lot. Collectively, we have returned to work and school, but many educators are returning to our classrooms and schools exhausted, disillusioned, and in some cases burnt out.

A recent RAND study stated that nearly 1 in 4 teachers said that they were likely to leave their jobs by the end of the 2020-21 school year, compared with an average of 1 in 6 prior to the pandemic. And a joint report from the National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP) and the Learning Policy Institute (LPI) from earlier this year reported that 42 percent percent of surveyed principals were considering leaving their position-a 110 percent increase.

It has been, and for many still is, a traumatic year. Many of our students are also returning to school having experienced trauma, loss of loved ones, and uncertainty about the future.

Schools play a big role in establishing spaces where everyone feels that they belong. The culture and climate established can be supportive and boost caring, or it can be unsupportive and raise stress levels. And for any meaningful learning to occur, everyone must feel safe, secure, and supported. And the actions that we take to help create this support can range from meaningful to tokenistic. As was highlighted in the article When Netflix Isn't Enough: Fostering True Recovery for Educators, many schools embark on well-intended but ultimately flawed tokenistic approaches.
"The problem is not that activities like orchestrated gift exchanges and happy hours-or even self-indulgent Netflix binges and spa days taken by teachers-are bad. It is that none of these practices provide true recovery and, as a result, they don't lead to sustainable practice."
The same tone was reiterated in a recent EdWeek article Teachers Are Not OK, Even Though We Need Them to Be, and it called on administrators to start to think differently about teacher well-being.
Encouraging yoga or meditation can't make up for systemic issues that cause stress, experts say. "You can't deep-breathe your way out of a pandemic; you cannot stretch your way out of terrible class sizes; you cannot 'individual behavior' your way out of structural problems," said Chelsea Prax, the programs director of children's health and well-being at the American Federation of Teachers. "Those are effective coping measures, but they don't change the problem."
Schools that have only created a superficial culture of care may struggle to meet the needs of everyone in their community. The PTA teacher luncheons, spontaneous coffee carts, and gift cards-practices that many schools and communities have adopted to show appreciation to teachers-are admirable but too often not sufficient to meet the needs of teachers. Practices such as morning meetings, spirit days, and rallies are a good beginning to show care for students, but they too will have to be reevaluated with a new lens knowing that the needs many students have will not be met with surface-level solutions. Given so much need, now is the perfect time to acknowledge and invest in creating a culture of care at your school.

Caring cultures start with strong relationships that are developed when leaders prioritize human needs. These leaders encourage everyone to prioritize their own well-being and understand the positive or virtuous impact it can have on others. They also encourage relationship building and intentionally setting aside time in the busy school schedule for people to get to know each other. And they set expectations and create opportunities for teachers to get to know their students and take the time themselves to get to know everyone in their community.

While relationships are key to creating a culture of care, school leaders are often the greatest single influence in shifting or creating a new culture at a school. Principals have the power to set the tone and establish a new order of business in a school. The principal provides education credibility to almost any initiative they champion, and as such, most school teams buy-in.

When care is a priority and becomes ingrained in the school's DNA, and becomes part of its culture, great things happen. Investing in creating a culture of care will not only improve the well-being of staff, it can also improve retention rates. The statistics around retention and burnout among educators are grim. And while some things are difficult to address in a single school year, investing in people to show them how much you care for them and value them can have immediate impact. And in our current circumstances, not demonstrating care can instead exacerbate the stress. Retaining staff and improving your culture of care can benefit student achievement, and performance, it can also benefit your budgets. Replacing a teacher is a costly endeavor, with researchers estimating these costs reach as high as 150 percent of the departing teacher's salary. Or in other words, two new hires could feasibly cost the district the same as three departing teachers.

Caring cultures have other benefits as well, they create a sense of ownership in everyone in a school community and create space for innovation. When individuals have a say in what they do, feel seen, heard, and valued, they develop a sense of belonging and ownership that fosters positivity and enthusiasm. It becomes a virtuous cycle of positive energy where good things happen, people flourish and grow. In these types of environments, trust and psychological safety develop, giving people the confidence to take risks, challenge current thinking, and innovate. When schools are driven by the needs of their people, not just the curriculum or school improvement plan, employee happiness increases, and student engagement and learning skyrockets.

Building a culture of caring does not happen overnight. It requires ongoing effort and action for the shift to create real change, yet it is also something that you can start to affect tomorrow.

Acknowledge individuals. Throughout the year, highlight individuals and share about who they are both personally and professionally.

Demonstrate care. Engage your team in nontask-oriented discussions. Ask how they are doing during these times. Be genuine.

Show your human side of leadership. Ask questions, admit vulnerability, listen actively. Check on how your team is doing and ask them what would reduce stress.

Learn to adapt your leadership style. Different individuals respond to different leadership styles and being able to adjust your style can have a big impact on your team and your school culture.

Provide training and professional development. Invest in and expand the skills and mindsets of everyone in your school.

The old saying goes: "Put your money where your mouth is." If you make a tangible investment in building a culture of care, your staff will know that you are serious about it. This can range from scheduling more time for collaboration, to hiring support staff, through to professional learning. Your budget is a moral document.

Education is a human endeavor, and learning is built on relationships. Creating a culture of care in our schools is a necessary endeavor in the best of times and an imperative when times are tough.

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'A Culture of Care': How Schools Can Alleviate Educator Stress This Year (Opinion)

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It takes more than deep breathing to alleviate the stress teachers feel. Here's how to get to the root cause.