Back from burnout: the charge to prevent mental ill-health in early career teachers

Now a keen researcher in the area of teachers’ mental health, the education lecturer from Australian Catholic University says she quit the profession after what she calls some ‘very difficult moments’.

The trigger was a widening disconnect between her work and the reasons she joined the profession in the first place.

“It was an erosion of ‘why am I here, what am I doing?’” Phillips recalls.

“It did not sit with why I had gone into teaching, and the administrative burden and workload was taking precedence over what was happening in the classroom.

“The cognitive and emotional fatigue from trying to juggle both the classroom teaching and then keep up to date and abreast with the administration – the workload does take its toll.”

Phillips says this same trajectory rings true for many teachers out there. Disillusioned with the ‘neoliberal ideology’ dictating schools and the system’s obsession with academic outcomes above all else, she says teachers are too often left grappling with the current state of play.

“We go into teaching with a sense that we are able to make a difference, that we are imbued with a sense of social justice, we want to be effective in our role, we want to be able to help young people acquire a love of learning themselves and to establish them in the processes for a good life – not just a career, but a good life,” she says.

Teachers well along on the burnout train are mentally unwell, Phillips notes, and their behaviour in the classroom or staffroom can often be symptomatic of their distress.

This can play out in the public eye, too, she flags.

“Often in the media we come across incidents of where teachers have lashed out, made inappropriate comments.

“Now when I look at it, I think ‘that teacher has been pushed to the extent where they could no longer control anything anymore’.

“They were not only experiencing burnout but were probably experiencing the final ‘confusion’ of burnout.”

Phillips is behind a pioneering mental health unit that’s been offered to ACU’s preservice teachers since 2023.

Called ‘Teachers’ Mental Health: The First Five Years’, enrolments have surged by 500 per cent since then.

One of the unit's key assessments requires students to develop their own mental health care action plan, which Phillips says has proven invaluable.

Designed to help early career teachers and teaching students on placement navigate the intense personal and professional challenges that come with working in schools, Phillips says feedback to date has been heartening.

Aware that women make up some 85 per cent of the Australian teaching workforce, Phillips notes there is a deliberate focus on confronting particular gender-specific stressors, such as juggling domestic and work demands, menstruation and menopause.

“We also look at how to cope with colleagues who could be difficult to work with, and the research that we’re conducting here at ACU has identified collegial bullying as being a problem within schools as well, so we look at that.

“We look at the strategies that early career teachers can use to navigate the difficulty of the school setting, and things like being aware of the EAP scheme, for example, which has got three, free counselling sessions a year…” Phillips adds.

One key assessment requires students to develop their own mental health care action plan, which Phillips says has proven invaluable for graduates who have been drawing upon the resource during testing times on the job.

The action plan is akin to an oxygen mask in periods of trial or crisis, the expert says.  

“I think for all of us who work in an industry where we come face-to-face with a lot of people – we work with very supportive people but also very difficult people – to have an action plan that becomes an immediate go-to is a very, very strong safety net.”

A team of ACU academics, including Phillips, have developed a new online platform to support teaching students, especially for those heading into school placements.

To complement this, an online symposium will be held on May 27 with presentations from current teaching students and graduates.

Phillips says her research work in teacher wellbeing and mental health has proven a means through which she could come to grips with the burnout and depression she herself endured.

“[It’s] part of what is referred to as post-traumatic growth, and the strategies that I had employed intuitively and then the strategies that I employed from the research, have also been extremely helpful in guiding and directing work that I do with our undergraduate and postgraduate students,” she shares.

“It’s also led me to explore much more widely, looking at international studies around teacher depression and teacher burnout, which is leading to the attrition rates internationally.”