Education Worker Toolkit
Like all Canadians, education workers and teachers experience mental health challenges. As part of a larger study of Canadian professional workers, 1146 education workers completed a survey to explore their experiences with mental health, leaves of absence, and return to work between November 2020 and May 2021.
Click below for the education report
A high number of education workers in our study, over 50%, reported having had a mental health issue at some point during their careers, with female teachers reporting high rates.
53 education workers were interviewed about their experiences. Themes such as increased workload, digital stress, the impact of leadership, social isolation and feeling disconnected were mentioned most often.
Our research team utilized survey data and interview stories to curate a list of resources to help improve education worker mental health with a focus on system, organization and team level resources.
Please watch our introductory video to help guide you through the resource options available.
What Interviewee’s are Saying:
“Nobody quits a job. They Quit a Manager”
“My interactions with health and wellness have left me feeling frustrated and feeling like I’m a number and not a person”
Workplace Wellness Playbook
The Workplace Wellness Playbook is intended to support and inform school authority leaders in collaborative conversations, resulting in the development of a school authority workplace wellness plan.
Teachers of Tomorrow Project
This iniative proposes an upstream approach to addressing student well-being though the issue of teacher preparedness. Key areas of focus include the physical environments of faculty, implementing healthy school policies and teacher and learning strategies. Knowledge exchange can be found at cshhub.com
The Podclass: Conversations on School Health
The podcast features Positive Teacher Well-Being with Dana Fulwiler. The Podclass is an educational podcast developed by Ever Active Schools. The first series is a collaboration with the Werkland School of Education that looks at maximizing the health and well-being of students and teachers.
Heartcare Planning for Educational Workers
Heartcare Planning emerged as a key finding from the Compassion Fatigue, Burnout, and Emotional Labour in Educational Workers research study. Create a HEARTcare plan to figure out how you respond to occupational stress and distress, ways to identify crisis and trauma work, and investigate available interventions to restore or maintain your emotional and mental health.
It Takes a Village
The Alberta School Employee Benefit Plan created a wellness hub to provide personal and workplace wellness information. Topics include healthy workplaces, relationships, self-care, social connections, self-assessment and more.
This Toolkit explores how to implement the Canadian Healthy School Standards, with a specific focus on the actions needed at a school system leadership level. It provides a pathway to follow in the form of six interconnected checklists, along with connections to additional resources.