Staff Wellbeing

This page is designed to provide information and resources for professionals to help them to manage their mental wellbeing. For most education staff, they will receive the support they need from within their setting/team. We would always encourage you to speak to your Line Manager or Head of Establishment (e.g., Head Teacher, Nursery Manager, Depute Head Teacher, Senior Early Years Practitioner) in the first instance, they are there to help you and have a duty of care to support your health and welfare.

If you would like to access further support for your mental health and wellbeing, please consider the services below:-

Aberdeen City Council (ACC) have an Intranet page dedicated to staff wellbeing where you can find a range of information and resources. They also provide all employees with free and immediate support. Click here to visit the ACC Mental Health and Wellbeing Intranet page.
Free support through ACC's independent Employee Assistance (Counselling) Programme (EAP) (click here) is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and includes public holiday periods. Your manager is not notified if you contact this service.

There are other mental health support services available that are funded by ACC:-

These include the Penumbra 365 service, which you can find details for by clicking here.
Some schools have Place2Be workers within their establishment and you can speal to your Senior Leadership Team to explore if this support is available to you.
Across Aberdeen City there are Mental Health First Aiders whose role is to provide a point of contact and reassurance alongside signposting further help. To find out more about the Mental Health First Aid programme, click here.

Why is it important to manage our own mental wellbeing?

Image showing an illustration and quote from 'The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse' by Charlie Mackesy.

As we support learners and their families, it is important to ensure adequate support is in place for our school community. Staff teams are likely to experience a range of emotions and reactions throughout the school year. Using the metaphor of the swan, we can feel like we are exuding an outer sense of calm for our pupils no matter how much frantic paddling is going on under the surface. We need to remember that this 'frantic paddling' is not sustainable in the long-term unless we are also supporting staff resilience.

We are generally much better at looking after our physical wellbeing than our mental wellbeing. We wouldn't overload ourselves physically by planning to move house, do a 10k, and paint our fence on the same day! Similarly we are pretty good at preparing our bodies for physical exertion by warming up, stretching, eating and sleeping well. We can recognise when we've overdone it and soothe our bodies with heat packs, a massage or a warm bath. Yet we are often not as good at preparing ourselves mentally or recognising mental or cognitive fatigue in the same way.

Stress and Anxiety

The part of our brain that controls our anxiety is the amygdala and it is constantly scanning for features of safety in our environment. It is in constant communication with the pre-frontal cortex which is the thinking part of our brain. So there is an ongoing balancing act going on between these parts of our brain where the amygdala sees signs of danger and the pre-frontal cortex assesses whether this is a real or imagined danger (fight/flight/freeze response).

External stressors can impact the brain's ability to distinguish real from imagined dangers and we all have times where we ‘flip our lid’ at a situation we never normally would, maybe because we are tired, have had a fall out with a loved one, have a button pushed by someone or are coping with a stressful situation. So the pre-frontal cortex will be processing an overwhelming amount of information and calming the amygdala which is more alert than ever. For more information about this, please visit our Emotion Coaching Topic page by clicking here. This may lead to cognitive fatigue which can show itself in the following ways: losing our temper, being tearful or anxious, difficulty concentrating or making decisions.

Image created by Aberdeen City Council's Educational Psychology Service describing some of the ways that anxiety may feel.

So what can I do about this?

The Circle of Control

Research shows that when we shift our focus to what we can control, we see meaningful and lasting differences in our wellbeing, health and performance. So one thing you can do is create your own 'circle of control' and try to work on noticing when your thoughts are drifting to things outside your control and then redirect your attention to things that are within your control.

You can't stop your mind from drifting to worries out with your control, but you can control your response to them.

Visual representation of the Circle of Control from Self-Love Rainbow.

Stay Connected

As social beings, connectedness and a sense of belonging are key to positive wellbeing. Post-pandemic, we now have an increase in online communications. When we are busy with work, we sometimes reduce our social activities or find it difficult to make time for friends or leisure activities. It’s therefore important to be purposeful in our interactions to avoid become over-whelmed and fatigued. This might mean putting boundaries and limits around our working day and making a concerted effort to spend time with family and friends. Experience of challenge and change can lead to extra strain on relationships in the home and so remember to be compassionate towards yourself and accepting of others as you journey together.

Self Care

Thanks to the Change 4 Life public health initiative, we are all aware of the idea of eating five pieces of fruit and vegetables each day to improve our physical health. However, we may be less aware that the same applies to our brain. Trying to incorporate five small activities every day into our routines, can support our emotional wellbeing and go a long way to maintaining mental wealth and increasing resilience. Here are some ideas you can try:

Regular physical exercise or getting outside.
Listing three things that have been good each day (however small).
Surround yourself with positive influences that "fill you up" rather than drain you.
Talk with your family and friends regularly.
Contact a friend you have lost touch with.
Give yourself a treat regularly.
Identify your strengths and use them as much as you can, especially to help others.

Visual showing a 'Self-Care Check-in' available from @tweets_by_beth.

Kindness & Gratitude

During times of challenge or uncertainty, we may not have access to our usual coping strategies and may be experiencing additional stressors and frustration. It is therefore important to have extra self-compassion and to be kinder and accepting of ourselves. Doing things for others, whether something nice for a friend or a random act of kindness, can also make us feel better during challenging times.

Starting or developing a gratitude practice is another way of overcoming low mood and anxiety. Reflecting and naming three things which have happened in our lives each day for which we are thankful or appreciated, is a useful health promoting activity as it focuses our attention on the present and the positives, however small. Alternatively, you can click here to learn how you can create a gratitude jar.

Mindfulness

In the fast paced world we live in, it is easy to stop noticing the environment around us. We can get from A to B without acknowledging or, indeed, remembering the journey - almost like being on autopilot. Sadly, the same can be said for the way we listen to our bodies. We can lose touch with the way our body feels and get caught up with the thoughts running around in our heads.

A crucial part of mindfulness is reconnecting with our bodies and the sensations they experience. Waking up to the moment and mindfully utilising our senses can be a powerful experience. By allowing ourselves to see the present moment clearly, we can positively change the way we see ourselves. We can enjoy the world around us more and understand ourselves better.

Mindfulness helps us to appreciate how our thoughts influence our emotions and behaviours. It allows us to see patterns and gradually train ourselves to notice when our thoughts are taking over. Thoughts, put simply, are mental events that do not control us and Mindfulness helps us to understand this.

The practice of mindfulness has proven to improve a variety of factors for school staff, which include:

Improved personal wellbeing
Reduction in mental health difficulties
Achievement of personally relevant goals
Enhanced ability to cope with the demands of teaching in a modern school

Senior Leadership Team

If you manage others you have to look after your own health and wellbeing to be able to help others. There are mandatory training for managers that relate to Health and Wellbeing of your staff. In addition to this, some things to consider:

As a first step, it would help to create a robust check in system amongst staff. Dr Bruce Perry recommends the ‘Relational Three’, whereby one member of staff (e.g. Head Teacher) checks in with three colleagues, who each in turn check in with three others and so on. This doesn’t need to be time consuming, for example, when meeting in the car park or waiting for the kettle to boil in the staff room, simply authentically asking ‘How are you doing?’ can go a long way.
To boost connectedness and resilience, all school staff could model help-seeking behaviours, especially senior leaders. Offer opportunities for staff to contribute to decisions e.g. through online polls and Google forms; ask explicitly if staff may need additional support and what this might look like; encourage staff to seek help from peers. Teachers report particularly valuing using peers as sounding boards (Ovenden-Hope, Blandford, Cain, & Maxwell, 2018).
Considering adopting Gratitude activities (see above), or positive psychology for your wider staff team - request a Systemic EIC with your EPS Locality to discuss ways to do this and resources to help.
Could you use or adapt the poster below for your school?

Image showing a poster titled 'How Schools Can Promote Staff Wellbeing' from Believe Perform.

Additional Resources

@thepsychologymum

Dr Hepburn is a Clinical Psychologist with a passion for sharing mental health and wellbeing supports in a fun and accessible way. Click here to visit her Instagram for more information.

Trauma Informed Interactions

This training is available to all Aberdeen City Council staff through ACC Learn. You can access this by clicking this link here to visit the ACC Intranet page. You may wish to consider how you apply this in your interactions with learners and your colleagues.

Want to learn more?

If you would like to explore further information related to emotional regulation and managing your emotional wellbeing, please visit our Emotion Coaching Topic page by clicking here.

Curious about Coaching?

The EPS can provide Coaching to any member of education staff in Aberdeen City. This can help to develop the confidence and support the emotional wellbeing of practitioners. Please visit our Coaching page by clicking here to find out more.

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