A Daily Intervention to Support Educator Stress Management, Efficacy, and Well-Being: The Comprehensive Approach to Learning Mindfulness Program

• In Event: Mindfulness-Based Approaches for Supporting Teachers’ Social and Emotional Skills and Dispositions

Abstract

The CALM Study of Teacher Health and Wellbeing tested an innovative intervention to reduce stress and promote healthy job-related functioning of middle school educators. The unique challenges faced by educators involve not only providing academic guidance but supporting the behavioral and emotional climate of their classrooms. This emotional labor is an additional layer on top of the ongoing need for educators to manage their own daily stressors and emotional experience in order to provide effective instruction. When these demands cannot be balanced, the results can be damaging levels of stress and burnout. For this reason, there is a great need to support the continuing development of educators’ social-emotional competence, including the skills necessary to manage emotions, stress, and relationships and to promote a climate within schools supportive of educators’ own wellbeing. Mindfulness-based approaches have demonstrated some promise for supporting educator stress management and wellbeing, but most interventions studied have involved intensive weekly sessions or retreat style trainings.
The current research tested the feasibility and efficacy of CALM, a 16-week brief daily yoga-based program integrated into the school setting. This study involved a quasi-experimental efficacy trial involving 64 educators from two schools: one intervention and one wait-list control. Data were collected through in-person physiological assessments and self-report surveys at pretest, 5 months later at posttest, and an additional 6 months later at follow-up. Teachers and school personnel in the intervention school were offered 64 20-minute sessions of gentle yoga and mindfulness practices 4 days per week before the start of the school day.
The CALM program was implemented with fidelity, well-attended, and received a positive response from educators. Educators attended an average of 24 sessions total, with 56% attending an average of once per week and 32% attending an average of 2 or more sessions per week. 94% of participants indicated that they would recommend the program to others and almost all participants rated the CALM program as equally or more useful/effective than other ways of managing stress at work (100%), other professional development opportunities in which they had participated (96%), and other ways of promoting health and wellbeing for school personnel (100%). Survey and focus group data also suggested that educators perceived benefits from CALM in their wellbeing, work experiences, relationships with colleagues, and experience of stress and physical wellbeing.
The efficacy of the CALM program was investigated through ANCOVA models with gender, years teaching, and pretest levels as covariates. Results indicated that CALM had benefits for educators’ wellbeing and job-related functioning. Compared to control participants, CALM participants improved in mindfulness, experience and management of emotions, and efficacy for classroom management. It also had preventive effects on indicators of physiological and psychological stress and burnout.
This study demonstrates that a brief daily program of mindfulness and yoga practice is a feasible strategy to impact educators’ social-emotional competence and wellbeing. This type of professional development opportunity for educators may be a promising method of preventing educator burnout and supporting the social-emotional climate of the learning environments in which they operate.

Authors

• Alexis R Harris, The University of Virginia

• Patricia A. Jennings, University of Virginia

• Rachel M Abenavoli, The Pennsylvania State University

• Deirdre A Katz, The Pennsylvania State University

• Deborah L. Schussler, The Pennsylvania State University - University Park

• Mark T. Greenberg, The Pennsylvania State University