Opportunities and Imperfections: Strategies to Support Educator Wellbeing
Manage
Unsave
This will also remove this resource from any lists you have added it to.
Overview
The COVID-19 pandemic has put our usual way of living and working on hold. Educators are navigating student, family, and personal challenges daily. Laura McMullin, PhD has been an educator for over 20 years and shares tools to enhance wellbeing and resilience on an individual and collective level.
Recorded on: 4/8/2020
Learning objectives
- Describe the three elements of Mindful Self-Compassion
- List the benefits of mindfulness
- Demonstrate ways to bring care to self
- Describe the concept of shared humanity
Related items
Navigating Uncertainty
The lack of stability and uncertainty during a pandemic can lead to feeling overwhelmed, chaos, and other negative emotions. Download this tool to get ideas for navigating uncertainty.
The Emotional Load of Teaching
When the pressures of being an educator go unchecked, it can impact interpersonal, mental, and physical health. Watch this video to understand how emotional intelligence helps educators manage feelings of stress, numbness, fatigue, and burnout.
Supporting Educators: Social-Emotional Strategies for Stressful Times
Supporting your own wellbeing and the wellbeing of your students is important during both calm and stressful times. Use these strategies on your own, with students, and with colleagues to build awareness and healthy relationships.
Mental Health and Supportive Services
Access this printable tool to get mental health and supportive services during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Anxiety Management During Uncertainty
During times of crisis, disaster, change, and uncertainty, we can expect our children to feel more than the usual amount of anxiety. Anxiety thrives on uncertainty and uses the unknown to fuel its thoughts and behaviors. For kids with anxiety disorders, fears and unknowns may become overwhelming. Parents, educators, and other caring adults can help guide children into successful anxiety management strategies.
Take a Deep Breath With Calm
Have you ever considered how focusing on your breathing can help you, de-stress? Follow the Calm App's "Take a Deep Breath" video. You will experience how breathing deeply in and out can support your overall wellbeing.
Preparing to Reopen: Addressing COVID-19 Stress and Racial Trauma
Racial trauma and stress experiences are affecting our school communities at an increased rate. Now, more than ever, how we cope and connect to school mental health providers is incredibly essential. Here to discuss school counselors' challenges, considerations, and successes in supporting our students, families, and teachers is Ms. Jewel Forbes, MA/PPS, Coordinator II Community Health and Safe Schools and the Lead for School Counseling and School-Based Mental Health at the Los Angeles County Office of Education. Recorded on: 6/12/2020
Preparing to Reopen: Listening, Partnering, and Breathing
Note: This interview includes a prologue to address racial realities in America (recorded date: June 12, 2020). COVID-19 has upended all of our lives in the last few months. Within the last few weeks, the publicized deaths of Black cis and trans women and men across the country have left our school communities traumatized and grieving. The COVID-19 pandemic has radically transformed the delivery of K through 12 education, leaving school staff facing several uncertainties. Dr. Laurel Bear joins to discuss the emotional wellbeing of students, ...
Trauma: Learning in a Pandemic
As educators, we know that maintaining a trauma and resilience informed lens means highlighting our student's strengths and honoring their experiences of stress and trauma. We also all know it doesn't always come easy; it takes practice and consistency. Joining us in our conversation on the importance of adopting a trauma and resilience informed lens in education is Melissa Spiegelman, MAEd, Nationally Certified STEM Educator. Recorded on: 4/21/2020
Supporting Students in Distress: The Importance of Psychological First Aid (PFA)
We have been hearing from teachers about how impossible it has been trying to teach students during this time, when our world has been turned upside down dealing with COVID-19. Here to share helpful communication tips educators can use during this time is Pamela Vona, MPH, MA, Director of the Center for Safe and Resilience Schools and Workplaces. Recorded on: 4/7/2020
An Introduction to Mindful Self-Compassion
This training introduces and provides a guided practice of mindful self-compassion, a skills-based program delivering mindfulness practices that cultivate self-compassion and interconnectedness. Anytime session recorded on October 17, 2018.
CALM Explainer Video
Communication challenges arise when interacting with others. The CALM strategy is a simple reminder of how to respond during a difficult or even combative situation. The strategy focuses on calming down and staying aware of non-verbal communication to help ease tension and reactions. Watch this video to learn the CALM strategy.
Cultivating Compassionate Schools
Hear from educators, mental health professionals and former students as they share firsthand accounts of the challenges and successes of creating a nurturing school community. Watch this video to explore the importance of building a school environment that is sensitive to trauma and promotes resilience.
Taking Care of You
It is important to make time to support your own wellbeing. Use this printable to identify the activities that will allow you to be more resilient and present in day-to-day activities.
Feeling Thermometer for Middle School and High School Students
Adolescents may experience intense emotions. The Feeling Thermometer assigns feelings to a color, using a scale ranging from comfortable feelings to uncomfortable feelings. Use this printable chart in the classroom as a quick, easy, and discreet way to check in with students about how they are feeling.
Effective Communication in the Classroom
A critical aspect of adolescent social development is the ability to effectively communicate with peers, teachers, and family members. Use this handout in class to introduce students to effective communications skills, including reflecting openly, making clarifying statements, and asking for more information when needed.
CALMR Worksheet
Communication challenges arise when interacting with others. The CALMR strategy is a simple reminder of how to respond during difficult or even combative situations. The strategy focuses on calming down and staying aware of non-verbal communication to help ease tension and reactions. Use the printable tool with students to help them navigate their responses to challenging interactions.
Butterfly Breath
The Butterfly Breath printable provides a guide and rhythm to help children regulate their breathing. Use this handout with children as a teaching and practice tool in order to help them reduce their stress, shift their mood, and prepare them to engage in classroom activities, sports, and social interactions.
Calm Together
Visit the Calm App's Calm Together blog to enjoy meditations, sleep stories, movement exercises, journals, and music handpicked by the Calm App Team. Each resource is free to use and share with colleagues, friends, and families.
Los Angeles County School Counselor Resource Guide
The LACOE School Counselor Resource Guide is a weekly-updated "live binder" created for school counselors and mental health professionals. The guide provides best practices and professional development on social justice, racism and hate crimes, mental health during COVID-19, general school counseling strategies, college and career professional development, and parental/caregiver supports.
Self-Compassion by Dr. Kristin Neff
All-in-one resource for self-compassion. This is the official website for Dr. Kristin Neff, pioneering self-compassion researcher, author, and teacher.
Greater Good Science Center Website
Based at UC Berkeley, Greater Good reports on groundbreaking research into the roots of compassion, happiness, and altruism.
UCLA MARC Mindfulness App
Mindfulness is the practice of training the mind to be present through moment-to-moment awareness of thoughts, feelings, body sensations, and the environment. Download the MARC Mindfulness app to participate in mindfulness meditation practice at work or home.