Promoting Resilience in School Environments: Educator Well-Being and Organizational Support

• In Event: Teacher Stress and Coping: Teachers' Experiences Navigating Student Wellness During COVID-19

Abstract

Resilience in School Environments (RISE) Initiative is a collaboration between Alliance for Healthier Generation (Healthier Generation) and Kaiser Permanente (KP) that empowers schools to create safe and supportive learning environments by developing policies and practices that improve the social-emotional health of all students and staff (https://thrivingschools.kaiserpermanente.org/mental-health/resilience-in-school-environments/). RISE focuses on key impact areas, including job satisfaction, school climate, social emotional learning, and mental health systems and support. This initiative provided tailored support to enhance student and staff well-being to approximately 300 districts and schools and offered a suite of free, online resources and tools to any school or district in the country. District and school staff participated in RISE at varying levels, as some schools and districts primarily accessed the online resources while others received more intensive support and were assigned Healthier Generation Program and Content Managers to provide district and school level coaching and training to school leaders and staff.

This session will review the impact of RISE on job satisfaction, school climate, social emotional learning, and mental health supports. This session will particularly focus on the implementation of education and organization well-being supports and the impact on educator health and well-being. The evaluation used quantitative (e.g., surveys and polls of participating school staff, RISE Index) and qualitative measures (e.g., focus groups, interviews) to monitor the implementation and impact of RISE. Quantitative data includes the Health-related Quality of Life (HR-QOL) “Healthy Days” Measure (https://www.cdc.gov/hrqol/pdfs/mhd.pdf) and the Resilience at Work Scale (http://workingwithresilience.com.au/measure-resilience/rw-scale). Data was collected from the Fall of 2019 through the Spring of 2022. Initial results indicate that participants reported improvements in managing stress and building social networks. They also reported that RISE helped to support a focus on wellness, supported a high-needs population of students, and was related to increased educator job satisfaction. Additional implementation and impact findings will be reviewed as part of this presentation.

Authors

• Dana Cunningham
  Non-Presenting Author

• Jill H. Bohnenkamp, University of Maryland
  Presenting Author

• Joanna Prout
  Non-Presenting Author

• Janna Sanders, National Center for School Mental Health
  Non-Presenting Author

• Karah Palmer
  Non-Presenting Author

• Catie Carpenter
  Non-Presenting Author

• Naomi Brown, George Mason University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Sharon Hoover
  Non-Presenting Author