“Taking innovative approaches to supporting teacher mental health will not only curb our increasing challenges with teacher burnout, it ultimately makes schools more connected and effective for everyone - teachers, staff, students, and families.” - Marcelle Davies-Lashley, Lead Social Worker and Mental Health Provider at Brooklyn Lab Charter School
Acknowledge Alliance believes that in order for students to thrive, the adults who influence their lives must be emotionally supported and empowered with the caring capacity they need to nurture students’ well-being. In the Resilience Consultation Program (RCP), our Resilience Consultants build teacher resilience by providing a weekly onsite presence at schools and offering confidential, social and emotional check-ins with school staff. They also offer Resilience Groups, where educators and administrators meet together each month. This decreases a sense of isolation and increases a sense of agency and community. Although our team members are called Resilience Consultants rather than social workers, our RCP staff take on the role Marcelle Davies-Lashley advocates for in her EdSurge article:
So, how do you cope when your entire classroom won’t listen? What do you do when you desperately want to reach a student who is checked out? How do you build relationships with a family and engage them as a partner? And perhaps the biggest issue: How do educators cope with the secondary trauma that they are increasingly carrying themselves? These are the kinds of questions my colleagues want to explore with me. Some have concrete answers, but most of the time these questions are emotional weights and teachers need an outlet and a safe space to process them.
Whether teachers come to me with personal or professional challenges, most of them are leveraging my support because finding time outside of school to care for their own mental health isn’t possible. The teachers and staff I work with give everything they have to their job. So much, in fact, that they often don’t have time or resources to seek support for themselves. If we can’t find a way to provide it for them in a way that is truly accessible, we can’t expect them to show up and be their best selves for our students.
Learn more about supporting the mental health of teachers by reading the full article on EdSurge here.