Led by Dr Lucy Corbett from The University of Sydney, the research canvassed the experiences of 23 teachers drawn from diverse locations across the country, revealing preventative health programs were seen to be ‘unsustainable and ineffective’.
Corbett said school-run sessions were deemed by teachers to be way off the mark and a weak ‘tick the box’ exercise on the part of leadership.
“They weren't seen as genuine, because they were just a once-off session where someone would come to the school and talk about wellbeing or time management or stress management.
“They were often run by a person who didn't have that much knowledge of the school context, so teachers felt like their suggestions couldn't really feasibly be incorporated into their day-to-day because of their unique context - like the rigid timetables that they have to follow.”
Global estimates of teacher burnout range between 25-40 per cent, with research suggesting that around half of all teachers in NSW experience psychological distress and two-thirds suffer from burnout.
Stress and burnout have also been identified as a major cause of teacher attrition, marked by exhaustion, emotional detachment, and impaired professional effectiveness, the research warns.
Corbett’s interest in assessing teachers’ perspectives on wellbeing programs is two-fold.
“I’ve previously done some work around the high levels of psychological distress and burnout among teachers, as well as relatively low adherence to healthy behaviour guidelines,” she explains.
“I'd also found that there's numerous programs out there claiming to target teacher stress and wellbeing, but there hasn't really been any population-level improvement in teacher wellbeing over the years.”
The researcher says it’s time we took teachers’ feedback into account before thrusting more wellbeing ‘fixes’ their way.
“Before we develop solutions, we needed to take a step back and engage with teachers to see what they need and hear what their preferences are - and that way we can try to develop solutions that are relevant and will be adopted.”
Indeed when it comes to professional development, teachers in the study observed that schools ‘invest significantly’ in wellbeing initiatives for students, but felt that their own wellbeing needs were not adequately addressed.
As one participant described:
“They do great things for the kids, but they don’t ever really do anything that’s targeted towards staff. And, even when staff have sort of asked for it, it’s put to the bottom of the list. They don’t see it as a priority.”
Teachers also saw schools' efforts to improve or protect teacher wellbeing as being insincere.
“At the moment it feels very tick-a- box. You hit the welfare thing,” one participant reported.
This sentiment was due to inconsistency and the provision of one-off sessions that were not seen to create meaningful and lasting change.
Corbett says any future wellbeing initiatives for teachers should be ongoing and commit to a long-term sustained effort.
“Having people involved who aren’t just necessarily parachuting in to do one session, and then we never see them again, but it’s like, 'Okay, we’re actually going to come once a term with stuff that’s very specific and targeted for you guys, with ways of showing you how to implement it,' and then following up…” one participant suggests.
Corbett was surprised to find that teachers have so far been left out of the design and development of wellbeing programs targeting the profession.
Too often the advice and strategies handed to teachers in wellbeing sessions were impossible to implement in a school context, the study found.
“They talked about, say, a time management person coming in who really knew a lot about managing time, but ... they weren't considering that a teacher has to be in a certain place, at a certain time based on their timetable and then has to also do all this preparation and [ many other tasks] as well.
“Teachers felt like [the wellbeing experts] spoke about ideas that they already knew that they should be doing, [and didn't offer] something that's practical that could be achievable in their day-to-day.”
Corbett was also surprised to find that teachers have so far been left out of the design and development of wellbeing programs targeting the profession.
“And teachers are really happy and grateful to share their perspectives while I was talking to them.
“And so I think the value of this piece is to more formally give teachers that voice and describe some of the broad aspects that need to be considered when we do develop solutions,” she adds.
What’s needed is a shift in how teacher wellbeing is viewed and addressed within schools and society at large, Corbett argues.
“There are so many expectations placed on teachers from society, government and individual schools as well, so school leaders.
“At the moment, teachers don't feel as though these parties are valuing their health and wellbeing - they're just required to meet all of these expectations and it doesn't matter if working hard to meet their expectations burns them out in five years.”
Employee wellbeing ought to be a shared responsibility, the researcher notes, where the onus is not squarely on the individual to ‘look after themselves’.
“While individual teachers should make healthy choices and manage stress, the employer also needs to create and facilitate a supportive environment and do what's in their control.
“So that was this feeling there that unless there is this shift through society, government and school leaders as well, across all those levels to prioritise wellbeing, it’s going to be really hard to have meaningful changes that improve it.”
Investing in teachers’ health and wellbeing is really a no-brainer, in Corbett’s view.
“[It] should be seen as an investment because happy teachers and healthy teachers will teach better and they'll stay in the system longer.”
