Dr Debra Phillips is an education lecturer at Australian Catholic University, whose research specialisation is teachers’ mental health, and with an extensive school-based teaching background herself, understands the ever-increasing rigours and challenges teachers face every day.
“The action plan is like being prepared to put your own oxygen mask on when the inevitable turbulence hits so you can be in a ready state before you can attend to students – after all, to teach well is to be well,” she says.
While regular exercise, debriefing with colleagues, taking time out rather than working through recess and lunchtime, eating nutritious food, keeping hydrated, restricting screen time and work in the evenings, taking part in creative activities and keeping focused on the big picture are ways to cope with challenges, a mental health care action plan is very much tailored to each individual.
“I certainly have pushed this idea with our undergraduates because if they start early in the piece developing their own action plan, it's going to be something that they will continue to use as they move through teaching – because what we're after is a retention of our young undergraduates within the workforce,” Phillips tells EducationHQ.
“Of course, we want our middle career teachers and our established teachers to remain in the workforce, too.”
Phillips says the action plan is like a safety blanket, it’s a means of security, a safeguard that keeps a teacher focused to get through difficult moments or scenarios and at its heart is, 'what is the purpose you bring coming into teaching?'
“All of the research is overwhelmingly that people go into teaching because they have a sense of social justice and they know that their contribution will make a difference to the lives of a lot of young people,” she explains.
Teacher mental health and wellbeing expert Dr Debra Phillips says it is important to remember why we still teach because a sense of purpose gives meaning to life and offers the protective stamina to navigate through difficult situations.
“But it's also about considering the other things that you can do for your colleagues that will keep them going through difficult moments.”
Indeed, the most salient protective, preventative and restorative factor for mental health, Phillips says, and especially for teachers, is that collegial network.
“And so we not only have a responsibility to our own selves but because we are a community of teaching practitioners, we have a responsibility to our colleagues as well.”
Phillips explains that the mental health care action plan is underwritten by that philosophy and perspective, and based not only on what can I do in the day-to-day life of being in a school, but also bearing in mind the question 'what can I do for my own self before and after school that's going to make it easier for me?'
She likens it to people who live in areas that are prone to bushfire or to flood, who have action plans around do we go or do we stay? What are the processes? Who do we contact?
“The mental health care action plan is basically our version of an evacuation kit...”
It’s about understanding what your limitations are, so if you are an early morning riser and do your best work in the morning, and by five o'clock in the afternoon you’re brain dead and can't do much, knowing your own bio-rhythms is important.
Knowing the triggers that are going to upset you is another key consideration.
“It could be that you need to have a clean coffee cup, and so if someone uses your coffee cup, you need to have a replacement so that you don't become agitated…
“I know that these are small things but it's the small things that build and build and build and start to erode our sense of stability.”
The transition time between classes can becomes a good time to reflect, even if it’s only for 60 seconds.
“So stop and rest and think about what it is you’re to do.
“So rather than it being a reactive moment in that transition time between classes, it becomes the time when there is reflection and an opportunity for garnering back the strength and energy to keep going forward.”
The personalised plan, the expert says, is important because it looks at your own personal circumstances and what you can realistically manage.
It's how you know any of the disruptions to the day are going to affect you and what you need to do if this is the case.
From a principal's perspective and a supervisory perspective, Phillips says it needs to be understood that if we want to keep our teachers then there has to be an acknowledgement that there are far more overwhelming stresses that a teacher must contend with now than there were 20 years ago.
“It's important that principals know something about the life that their teachers have outside of school,” Phillips says.
“You could presume that for the established senior teachers they will either be parents of young adults, they might be becoming grandparents themselves, and they've got different stressors than what it is for say an early career teacher and understanding that when they're talking to their staff that they become aware of that personal life of their teachers.”
Exercise, as mentioned, is a well known booster of good mental health, and for Phillips, her own methods are unorthodox but still powerfully effective.
“I advocate a private little dance party,” she says, laughing.
“Put on your favourite music, it could be in the morning or even the afternoon, and have a little dance about the office or the classroom - just to get the sense of excitement back into the day.
“It's great fun dancing like no one's watching, well hopefully no one's watching, it’s invigorating and good for the soul.
“I'm not into playing rugby or tennis or gym or anything like that, so my exercise is just a little bit of a walk to work and a bit of a dance around.”
