BREAKOUT SESSION B3

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10:20 AM – 11:20 AM

Hazel McCallion C

Developing Wellbeing, Care and Connection through Initial Teacher Education (ITE) Programs

   Growing Pre-Service Teachers’ Well-Being Capacity across Canadian Teacher Education Programs

Benjamin Kutsyuruba, Queen’s University

With the increasing attention to well-being and mental health in schools as antecedents of meeting students  academic, emotional and social needs, more research is needed to understand how educator well-being can be promoted alongside student well-being. This is especially significant at the formative teacher education stage, in order to design programs that will help pre-service teachers attend to their well-being and foster others  well-being in their professional work. Therefore, in our study, we examined programmatic considerations within teacher education programs in Canada to determine the extent to which teacher preparation programs includes support for and promotion of teacher well-being as part of their pre-service teaching development. This session will present findings from the pan-Canadian questionnaire (n=621) distributed to teacher candidates across seven participating sites (teacher education programs) across Canada. The questionnaire was developed from key literature findings with closed and open-ended questions about the programmatic components and initiatives and their perceived effectiveness regarding 9 dimensions of well-being (cultural, emotional, environmental, financial, intellectual, physical, social, spiritual, and vocational). Findings pointed out to varied levels of programmatic attention to each of the dimensions and highlighted the importance for teacher candidates to manage stress well and take care of their well-being prior to their transition into teaching careers. Our research provides an important perspective contributing knowledge and practices about the development of teachers who eventually go on to be leaders in our school systems.