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.
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”
Taking Care of Teachers: Mental Health & Wellbeing Hub
This virtual hub includes information, tools, and resources on school staff mental health and wellbeing. Topics cover staff wellbeing, school culture, supporting teams and measuring success.
Mentally Healthy Schools: Resource Hub
This resource hub is for classroom and wellbeing support. Resources include online activities, toolkits, trainings, videos, podcasts, lesson plans and more.
Microaggressions: staff meeting presentation and guidance
A microaggression is 'an act or a remark that discriminates against one or more members of a minority group, either deliberately or by mistake.' This training includes a PowerPoint and guidance on delivering a presentation about microaggressions to staff members.
New Teachers: Tips for a Successful 1st Year!
In this 30 minute video, you will benefit from a condensed 30 years of teaching and coaching training to support you and prepare you for your first years of teaching. You will find incredible tips for embracing the reality of your new year, optimizing your wellness and mindset, releasing fear and creating health days guilt free.
Ohio School Wellness Initiative
The Ohio School Wellness Initiative is committed to supporting K-12 schools across the state and providing resources and guidance to promote well-being for school staff in all positions. The School Staff Wellness Manual provides assessments, planning tools, resources, and sample activities that can be incorporated throughout the school year to promote wellness for individual school staff members as well as thinking about wellness holistically for school teams.
The Teacher App
This app aims to help teachers take care of themselves and feel stronger when it comes to navigating mental health. This can be achieved through community and providing services to connect, heal, and learn.
Addressing Racism in the K-12 Workplace
This article discusses how anti-racism is integral to staff well-being. School districts should feature acknowledgement, community partnership and leadership, accountability, disaggregated race-based data collection, transparent monitoring and reporting along with policy development and implementation.
LEARN Mental Health
This online modular resource for educators can be used as a self-guided course or in individual modules by those wishing to develop their mental health literacy.
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.
Here to Help
Screening self-tests are tools that help you look at your mental health or wellness. These tests look for signs or symptoms that can show up in some mental illnesses. They can also help you look at patterns of feelings or patterns of substance use.
BounceBack
BounceBack is a free skill-building program managed by the Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA). It is designed to help adults manage low mood, mild to moderate depression and anxiety, stress or worry.
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.
Survive and Thrive
The Ontario Teachers' Federation developed this website which contains strategies for things such as balancing your personal and professional life, ensuring your personal wellness, and developing effective time management strategies.
Mentor Teacher
This article highlights research that explores the role that mentoring and coaching practices play in helping educational professionals attune to the importance of maintaining their own well-being and fostering well-being among those they work with.
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.
The Well Teacher
The Well Teacher book provides teachers in the K-12 system with tips, tools, and information on how to improve personal well-being and address teacher wellness barriers. (This resource was given by the Ontario Teachers’ Federation to teachers who attended the 2022 OTF/Affiliate Symposium on mental health).
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.