SAMHSA
Teacher Stress Reduction Initiative:
Critical
Stressors and Recommendations for Prevention/Intervention
Violence
and Crimes Against Teachers
What
is the Teacher Stress Reduction Initiative?
Stressors
for Teachers and Intervention/Prevention Ideas
Teacher
Stress Reduction Initiative National Advisory Group
Give
Feedback on this Project!
Â
Violence
and Crimes Against Teachers
The
good news about school violence is that student-on-student violence
has steadily decreased. Despite that good news, according to the
US Department of Justice, Bureau
of Justice Statistics, National Crime Victimization Survey,
1992-1996, threats of violence directed at teachers has increased.
Teachers
in urban schools and in high schools are more vulnerable to crime
than teachers in rural or in elementary schools. Although most teachers
are female, male teachers are significantly more often the victims
of crime at school, with theft being most often the type of crime
committed against teachers and students alike. Based on reports
made by public and private school teachers for 1992 to 1996, on
average for each year:
- 123,800 violent
crimes against teachers occurred at school, - or a rate
of 30 violent crimes for every 100 teachers, - four (4)
out of every 1,000 elementary, middle and high school teachers
were victims of serious violent crime at school.
Urban
schools presented a significantly higher incidence of violent crimes
against teachers than did suburban and rural schools. For every
1,000 teachers, 39 were victims of violent crimes in urban schools,
22 were victims of violent crimes in rural schools, and 20 were
victims of violent crimes suburban schools. (US Departments of Education
and Justice Annual
Report on School Safety, 1998)
Table:
Rates of Violence Per Occupation
What is the Teacher Stress Reduction Initiative?
To
address the issue of violence and crime and their impact on schools,
the Center for Mental Health Services (CMHS)
at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration
(SAMHSA)’s introduced SAMHSA’s
Safe Schools/Healthy
Students initiative. Safe Schools/Healthy Students encourages
and supports the development of comprehensive services to school
districts by education, mental health, and law enforcement agencies
and personnel. Goals envisioned for these interagency collaborations
are to promote healthy child development and to prevent violence.
Recognizing
the central role of teachers in the lives of children, schools,
and communities, CMHS/SAMHSA has initiated the Teacher Stress Reduction
Initiative to reduce teacher stress and improve the overall quality
of professional life for teachers. This project seeks to attend
to the mental health needs of teachers in relation to school safety
and the goal of creating and maintaining safe and orderly school
environments.
Safe
and orderly schools are what parents identify most often as being
a top issue and area of concern with respect to their children’s
schools. Safe and orderly schools, as a concept, includes but is
significantly broader than school violence. Parents want schools
to be environments that are not only safe but are also sufficiently
free from distractions and disruptions so as to be conducive learning
environments. Achieving safe and orderly schools is a top priority
for teachers as well as top issue for parents. As such, this project’s
objective goes hand-in-hand with NEA’s top strategic priorities:
1) supporting student achievement, 2) supporting teacher quality,
and 3) building school capacity.
Through this initiative NEA HIN convened an advisory
group of national organizations to identify critical stressors
for teachers and interventions to address these stressors. This
project seeks to attend to the needs of teachers by providing ideas
for effective ways to reduce workplace stress – stress that impacts
teacher mental health by engendering normal reactions such as anxiety,
fear, and depression. Although interventions were identified as
benefiting teachers, many of the interventions also meet the needs
of students, both towards reducing stress that students may feel
in relation to violence and crime and towards supporting and strengthening
academic outcomes for students. The recommendations of this project
although primarily focusing on teacher well being, also reflect
some of the best thinking on what students need in order to be healthy
and to learn and achieve.
Four Critical Stressors for Teachers
The advisory group convened for this project identified four critical
stressors for teachers. Although not included among the top four
identified stressors, it was noted that the physical environment
of a school (i.e., cleanliness, need(s) for repair) makes a very
significant contribution as to whether or not a school is a stressful
environment in which to work. More abstract notions of school climate
or emotional environment may also be a factor in creating stress
or allowing for its reduction. After identifying four critical stressors,
the advisory group identified recommendations for prevention and
intervention to address the four critical stressors. The identified
critical stressors and related recommendations for prevention and
intervention are summarized below.
Stressor:
Feeling isolated and/or powerless
Recommendation:
- Build/sustain
peer connections: provide intern and mentoring programs; designate
teacher leaders; organize teaching teams. - Involve teachers
in decision making. - Provide recognition
and concrete performance incentives that will increase cooperation
rather than foster competition. - Build/support
effective community involvement in schools.
Stressor: Lack of training and/or skills needed to identify and
address students’ behavior that is potentially problematic
Recommendation:
- Build and
maintain partnerships between schools and post-secondary schools
of education for pre-service and inservice training. - Provide for
experiential learning and classroom simulation in pre-service
and inservice training. - Recognize
and utilize the expertise that exists among school personnel that
could be used as resources for inservice training/workshops. - Develop and
maintain school/community resource partnerships.
Stressor: Lack of clear expectations and classroom and school-wide
management to meet those expectations
Recommendation:
- Develop a
set of clear expectations that are school-wide, for classrooms
and all other (i.e., non-classroom) school settings. - Communicate
effectively to all members of the school community – students,
teachers and other school staff, administration, and governance
– what those expectations are, including an explicit statement
that whenever school personnel and/or other members of the school
community act on these expectations that the school will support
them in their having taken action. - Identify
resources (including school personnel time) and allocate those
resources to support the management strategy. q Identify/research
best practices for your (i.e., the teacher’s, the school’s) particular
needs.
Stressor: Fear of verbal, emotional or physical intimidation
Recommendation:
- Training/participation
in violence prevention programs. - Realistic
assessment of risk and adequate, accurate communication among
school personnel. - School safety
and crisis response plans/procedures to respond to existing and
potential needs at the classroom, building, system, and community
levels. - School/community
partnerships with law enforcement and mental health agencies and
personnel.
Teacher Stress Reduction Initiative National
Advisory Group
- American
Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry - American
Association of Colleges for Teacher Education - American
Psychological Association - Center for
School Mental Health Assistance - Council of
Chief State School Officers - National
Association of School Psychologists - National
Association of Secondary School Principals - National
Association of State Boards of Education - National
School Boards Association - National
Association of Social Workers
- A full report
on the SAMHSA Teacher Stress Reduction Initiative: Critical Stressors
and Ideas for Prevention/Intervention initiative will be available
soon on this website. To request a printed copy now, please contact
Angela Oddone,
MSW, Mental Wellness Program Coordinator, NEA Health Information
Network, or call (202) 822-7570. - A 45-minute
television program is in development as part of NEA’s Safe
Schools Now Network, that will be broadcast via EchoStar satellite
on November 16, 2000 focusing on findings and recommendations
from this SAMSHA Teacher Stress Reduction initiative.
Read Education
Week‘s two-part special series on Teen
Suicide.
- Visit SAMHSA’s
website for more information on school mental health and violence
prevention programs.
Give
Feedback on this Project!
Use this online
form to provide your feedback and comments.