Whole Child Spotlight: Supporting Educator Mental Health

Sean Slade

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Social-emotional learning

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Attending to mental health needs is as important for educators as it is for students. We are role models, we are caregivers, we are first responders (much too often, lately). If we are to establish environments that are healthy, safe, and supportive for students, we must be working to address our own health and well-being.

Educators are typically the last to request help and the first to put others' needs, especially students' needs, before their own. Yet it is imperative for us, both individually and as a profession, to make our own well-being a priority.

In his book The Well-Balanced Teacher (ASCD, 2010), Mike Anderson draws the comparison to the familiar air-travel instruction:

You've probably heard the advice "put on your own oxygen mask before assisting others." This is true both in airplanes and in classrooms—you have to take care of yourself before you can help someone else. If teachers are stressed out and exhausted, how can they have the patience, positive energy, and enthusiasm to provide the best instruction for students?

Anderson goes on to outline key elements we must foster to support educator mental health in schools:

Belonging: Teachers need to feel positive connections with other people, both in school and outside school.
Significance: Teachers want to know that they make a positive difference through the work they do.
Positive engagement: When teachers enjoy their work, they have great energy and passion for their teaching.
Balance: Healthy teachers set boundaries and create routines so that they can have rich lives both in the classroom and at home.

Creating such conditions is particularly important this year, when educators are facing so much struggle and uncertainty. We are not immune from stress, trauma, and loss. We can only be effective if we take care of the caregivers—and in this case, the caregivers are ourselves.

Key Whole Child Indicators on Mental Health in Schools

Our school addresses the health and well-being of each staff member (Healthy, No. 5).
Our school integrates health and well-being into the school's ongoing activities, professional development, curriculum, and assessment practices (Healthy, No. 7).
Our school sets realistic goals for student and staff health that are built on accurate data and sound science (Healthy, No. 8).
Our school facilitates student and staff access to health, mental health, and dental services (Healthy, No. 9).
Our physical, emotional, academic, and social school climate is safe, friendly, and student-centered (Safe, No. 3).
Our school staff, students, and family members establish and maintain school and classroom behavioral expectations, rules, and routines that teach students how to manage their behavior and help students improve problem behavior (Safe, No. 5).
Our school upholds social justice and equity concepts and practices mutual respect for individual differences at all levels of school interactions—student-to-student, adult-to-student, and adult-to-adult (Safe, No. 8).

To learn more about the Whole Child school indicators, visit www.ascd.org/whole-child. To join the Whole Child Network, go to www.ascd.org/wholechildnetwork.

Sean Slade is an education leader, speaker, and author, with nearly three decades of experience in education in the U.S. and globally. He serves as Head of BTS Spark, North America, the social impact arm of BTS focusing on educational leadership development. Prior to BTS Spark, Sean was senior director of global outreach at ASCD, where he launched and grew the ASCD Whole Child Network across 56 countries and led the development of the Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child Model (WSCC) with the CDC. His latest book is The Power of the Whole: What is Lost by Focusing on Individual Things.