The proactive practice of self-care is a guiding principle of the American Counseling Association, the American School Counselor Association, and some others, who describe such practices as beneficial for promoting one’s own “emotional, physical, mental, and spiritual well-being to best meet their professional responsibilities” (ACA, 2014, p. 8).
Stress that is not effectively reduced can lead to burnout, defined as “a syndrome of emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and reduced personal accomplishment that can occur among individuals who work with people in some capacity” (Maslack, 1986, p. 61). Of the work variables most commonly associated with burnout, including work overload, lack of control, insufficient reward, unfair treatment, breakdown of community, values conflict, or lack of person – job fit (Maslack, 1997), it seems likely that most teachers have experienced at least one.
Several researchers have recommended that the introduction of the importance of self-care practices for mental health practitioners be initiated in graduate training in order to improve regular integration into life for early career professionals (Bamonti et al., 2014, Newell & MacNeil, 2010, Shapiro et al., 2007).
Managing the demands associated with being a teacher in “the current stressful educational landscape,” as described by Gill Lopez (2016) seems like a significant challenge in itself, and SCSD’s teachers face additional significant stressors unique to serving in a low-income, urban community. As a district, SCSD is working toward increasing our trauma-sensitiveness, as it is estimated that over 80% of our student population has endured more than three adverse childhood experiences associated which have been linked to chronic health problems and other negative outcomes in adulthood. In supporting students who have to handle more traumatic experiences than many teachers have in their lifetime, the level of vicarious trauma and work-related stress for teachers of SCSD is an important consideration, especially in terms of how ameliorating stressful experiences may be related to increased employee job satisfaction, employee retention, and student growth.
Through offering no-cost self-care workshops to graduate students and school professionals, Dr. Gill Lopez (2017) was able to make some important conclusions about the effective delivery of messaging about the importance of self-care. She summarized, “…it appeared that the ethics and burnout arguments for self-care were not persuasive enough to extract a long-term commitment until two additional pieces were added to the message.” Those two key components include:
1) neurobiological explanations about the benefits of self-care on work performance and the impact of modeling self-care for students, and
2) increasing the likelihood of the adoption of these practices by helping people customize a feasible, sustainable self-care plan.
Dr. Gill Lopez facilitated workshops according to the ADKAR model for change (Hiatt & Creasy, 2003), which explains that there are five key steps for successful promotion of paradigm shifts: 1) raise Awareness for the need for change, 2) nurture a Desire to participate in the change, 3) provide Knowledge regarding how to change, 4) develop the Ability to change, and 5) Reinforce the change. The workshop Dr. Gill Lopez developed aimed to address each of the ADKAR steps. The two most important aspects of her workshop, according to her own assessment, are detailed below.
Lopez, G. (2016, 2017). Self care: The missing link in best practice. National Association of School Psychologists: Communique Volume 45, Issue 4.