I have been a school social worker for the last 15 years, so I am very aware of our The growing youth mental health crisis in the country. I know that strong mental health and social-emotional supports for students are non-negotiable in education, and I applaud new programs and resources designed to address this urgent challenge for our students. But what about the mental health of our educators?
Yes, the teacher mental health crisis is also capturing headlinesespecially for its supposed connection with our worsening teacher shortage. Unfortunately, I have not seen as much investment or innovation from our educators.
A year ago, I found an opportunity to change that. They offered me a job at Brooklyn Laboratory Charter School as a school social worker, but with a unique spin on the traditional role. I divide my time between caring for students and adults in the building. While I still have a large number of students that I meet with regularly, my job description explicitly states that I am the mental health provider for our school staff. My colleagues can schedule an appointment on my calendar, call me in a crisis or emergency, and text or call me at any time.
At first I was reluctant to accept the position. I became a school social worker because of my deep passion for helping, educating and caring for young people. I know the need for that work is greater than ever, especially for students from underserved communities who have been disproportionately affected by the pandemic, like the students we serve at Brooklyn Lab. But what inspired me to take on this position and what has energized me every day since is that I now understand that supporting adults in school is one of the most important things I can do on behalf of my students.
Creating this feature (a dedicated on-site mental health resource for teachers and staff) is different from how I've seen most schools try to address teacher mental health. While benefits like free lunch, a period of additional planning, or professional development on self-care for teachers can be supportive, they can often feel like Band-Aids on top of an open wound.
That's why my work is so innovative and effective. As a person who walks the halls with the same students and families as my colleagues, I can quickly and tangibly support them with many day-to-day challenges. Sometimes people come to me with personal problems outside of their work, but most of the time teachers come to me for professional challenges. People stop by my office or text me because they need to talk about their experiences with someone who understands what they're going through.
Most of my conversations focus on how teachers can improve their practice. Yes, there are essential skills and technical knowledge that are necessary to teach the quadratic formula, improve reading comprehension or conjugate verbs in Spanish. But any teacher will tell you that a big part of teaching is also based on interpersonal skills.
So how do you cope when your entire class won't listen to you? What do you do when you desperately want to communicate with a student who is withdrawn? How do you build relationships with a family and become involved as partners? And perhaps the most important question: how do educators address the secondary trauma that they take more and more 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 emotionally charged 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 take advantage of my support because it is not possible to find time outside of school to take care of their own mental health. The teachers and staff I work with give everything they have to their jobs. In fact, so much so that they often do not have the time or resources to seek support. If we can't find a way to provide it to them in a way that is truly accessible, we can't expect them to show up and be the best they can for our students.
If we want to change the emotional toll of this profession and better equip our educators to take on the many challenges our students face, we must start investing differently in teacher mental health. My role is not the only way to do this, but it has certainly proven to be effective and transformative for our school community. Since my school created this position, we have seen a 25 percent increase in teacher satisfaction in an annual staff survey designed to assess what is needed to improve the work environment.
I am well aware that this type of effort requires significant financial and human resources. We are investing more to address the youth mental health crisis, which is critical. But we are not looking closely enough at the role educators play and how to support their well-being.
Taking innovative approaches to supporting teacher mental health will not only curb our growing challenges related to teacher burnout, but will ultimately make schools more connected and effective for everyone: teachers, staff, students and families.
