NEA | HIN – Mental Health and Wellness

These interventions
are designed to reduce isolation by creating connections and
enhancing relationships among school staff. Allocating time
and otherwise providing administrative support for school staff
to connect with one another is deemed to be key for the success
of these interventions. National Board Certification for master
teachers can serve as a vehicle for supporting mentoring relationships;
some states even provide financial incentives by covering the
cost of certification. Models for mentoring programs are abundant.
The provision of adequate time, space and other resources for
teaching teams to work together and to support each other is
essential for teams to thrive.

Site-based
management and local restructuring can provide teachers and
other school staff with opportunities to participate in important
decision-making. For example, administrators can involve teachers
in efforts to recruit and interview candidates for staff positions,
allowing them to directly contribute and share in the responsibility
for hiring decisions. Involving staff in decisions that relate
to student behavior is an important dimension of empowering
school staff, particularly in relation to violence-related stress.
Staff participation in the development and implementation of
discipline policies and outcomes directly addresses both the
isolation and powerlessness aspects of violence-related stress.

As rewards,
in and of themselves, recognition and acknowledgment for good
performance can increase motivation and reduce stress.

Promoting
cooperation—rather than competition—directly addresses isolation.
Concrete incentives that reward group performance introduce
a shared goal towards which staff can work together.

Community
involvement in schools can reduce staff isolation. By reinforcing
the notion that schools are vital and essential contributors
to the community, this type of involvement can help to reduce
the risk of burnout among staff. Increasing the presence of
community members in the schools can enhance community understanding
of the environment in which teachers and other school staff
work. It can reinforce community recognition of the important
contributions made by schools and increase the prestige of school
staff within the community. Community involvement can also yield
greater opportunities for schools and communities to identify
common goals and priorities.

Providing
access to community resources for professional development for
school staff addresses both powerlessness and isolation. When
linked and responsive to identified needs for curriculum assessment
and classroom management, community resource banks can make
schools more responsive to the communities they serve and enable
communities to be more responsive and supportive of schools.

The Federal
government’s Safe Schools/Health
Students Initiative highlights the importance of effective
community involvement in schools. Drawing from best practices
in mental health, social service, education and justice, this
initiative seeks to promote a comprehensive, integrated framework
that communities can use to address school violence.

School-community
partnerships are also highlighted as an essential ingredient
in SAMHSA’s School and Community Action Grants. Step one for
each of the 40 grantees awarded in 1999-2000 was to build consensus
among school-community stakeholders. Once consensus has been
established as a foundation, grantees pilot evidence-based programs
and practices to promote healthy development and prevent youth
violence.

The accumulated
expertise of experienced educators offers a valuable resource
for pre-service training. Partnerships between K-12 schools
and post-secondary schools of education would provide a mechanism
for integrating experienced classroom teachers, administrators
and other experienced professional school staff into standard
pre-service post-secondary training curricula. Bringing seasoned
teachers and administrators into post-secondary classrooms would
greatly enrich the reality base for pre-service instruction.

Developing
skills and generating confidence in the use of newly acquired
skills requires practice. Particularly in relation to identifying,
understanding, and addressing student behavior, experiential
learning and classroom simulation would provide opportunities
for staff to practice the skills they will need to rely on when
they face actual situations with students.

Designate
mentor teachers to train faculty members. Invite pupil services
personnel (e.g., school nurses, school psychologists, school
counselors, school social workers, occupational therapists,
and others) for in-service training across professional disciplines
represented among school staff.

By building
formal relationships with community-based professionals and
organizations, school staff can gain access to valuable expertise
for staff development and ongoing consultation. Potential community-based
resources include health centers, mental health centers, social
service agencies, private social service organizations, youth
advocacy organizations, hospital-sponsored programs, recreation
centers, and faith/religious-sponsored programs.

Providing
adequate opportunities for staff development, including sufficient
time for school staff to participate in training and consultation
activities, is key for making the best use of community- and
school-based resources. Time set aside for these activities
should take into account the schedules and workloads of teachers
and other school staff so as not to create more stress.

Meaningful
parental involvement can make a pragmatically important contribution
to school staff professional development. The advisory group
recommended that schools invest in strengthening parental involvement
by creating and maintaining formal mechanisms and programs for
parents to volunteer their time in schools. One aspect of this
would be for schools to provide training for parents to serve
as volunteer classroom monitors. With some training, parents
could feel better prepared and more competent to take on the
roles assigned to them at school, thereby enhancing their ability
to contribute in a meaningful way. Trained parent volunteers
could make an essential contribution to staff professional development
by helping to make more staff time available for training, consultation
and other professional development activities.

Expectations
for student behavior best serve the school when the process
for developing them involves school-wide and community-wide
input. Such input and consensus building allow for greater feelings
of ownership and support. Community involvement in this process
also addresses the isolation aspect of stress.

These expectations
might include explicit guidelines to promote certain positive
behaviors (e.g., service to others, good citizenship) and prohibit
others that often precede actual violence (e.g., name-calling,
bullying). Establishing school norms for behavior can be an
effective form of violence prevention.

In order
for them to be meaningful, expectations for student behavior
in the school need to be translated into concrete, real-life
terms. This should include clear, concrete definitions of the
roles and responsibilities of school staff and every other member
of the school community.

Feeling
ineffective is bound to cause stress. Conflicts over discipline
among staff, administration, and others in the school can generate
significant stress for everyone involved. In order to enhance
effectiveness in upholding school expectations for student behavior,
staff need know that they have the support of their colleagues
and school leaders. If school expectations have been developed
with community-input, the potential for parents to undermine
the authority of a teacher or other school staff can be minimized.
Stress can be reduced and confidence can be increased when staff
know that, when they act in a way that is expected of them,
they can count on being backed up and supported. The goal of
this recommendation is to assure that every member of the school
community can say, “I am clear about what is expected of me.
I am confident that when I take an action that is consistent
with these expectations, my school community will back me up.”

Best practices
could include making use of school management techniques, such
as the use of block scheduling. Block scheduling reduces the
amount of student traffic in the hallways. Reducing crowding
contributes to violence prevention in schools which, therefore,
contributes to preventing violence-related stress for staff
who may be required to monitor hallways. Once in place, the
overall management strategy chosen by the school must be sustained.
A continuous improvement model (e.g., assess, design, implement,
assess, re-design, etc.) should be applied to allow for adjustments
as needed. A mechanism for evaluation, particularly for gathering
and incorporating feedback, would be important to include.

Drawing
from prevention research, some schools are focusing their interventions
on behaviors and situations that often are pre-cursors to violent
behavior. Evidence-based violence prevention programs and practices
include:

Some research
suggests that school staff should focus on relationship building,
with an overall goal of developing positive connections with
students, rather than focusing on rules, discipline, and consequences.
Training to help staff become more effective listeners, such
as using reflective listening skills, could support and enhance
teacher-student relationships. In addition, cultural competency
programs that foster respect, understanding and acceptance of
others make an important contribution.

Planning,
preparation and adherence to a procedure for ensuring that regular,
accurate communication will be maintained whenever a crisis
does occur reduces speculation and fear among staff, students
and parents. It is important for school officials to inform
staff of events when they occur and to inform them about outcomes,
including how incidents get resolved.

This recommendation
also addresses the first critical stressor that can contribute
to violence-related stress, feeling isolated and/or powerless.
Communication of accurate information decreases the influence
of rumors that often develop after an incident. Open lines of
communication with parents and other community members can set
the stage for collaboration and avoid a tense, and possibly
even litigious, climate. So, it is especially important for
administrators to ensure that regular communication occurs with
the community, including open communication about how incidents
have been or will be resolved.

It reassures
school personnel to know ahead of time what to do in the event
that a crisis does occur. Having school safety and crisis response
plans and procedures in place for every level – classroom, building,
district and community – makes a significant contribution to
reducing violence-related stress. [See NEA Crisis Communications
Guide and Toolkit, Vol. 1, Being Prepared – Before a Crisis,
page 1.6 – “Checklist – How Does Your School or District Crisis
Response Plan Measure Up?”]

Particularly
for violence prevention and crisis response work, schools should
not function in isolation from the community. School partnerships
with community-based agencies are essential for planning and
implementing effective crisis response. These partnerships provide
access to expertise and resources that schools generally do
not have (e.g., emergency fire and rescue) or may have (e.g.,
mental health services), but not in sufficient quantities. High
caseloads for pupil services personnel may not allow for them
to take on an active, primary role in school safety and crisis
response.

Violence
that occurs outside of school can also have an impact inside
the school. Communication and collaboration with mental health,
social service, and law enforcement agencies can assist schools
in violence prevention efforts and can help school officials
and school staff to be better prepared for dealing with violence
when it does occur at school.

Because
schools are unique environments in which to work, community-based
professionals may need time and guidance to get oriented to
school culture. Community-based professionals may not be familiar
with procedures, protocols, and various laws and regulations
that influence the way schools operate and function. Although
community-based professionals may have much to offer in terms
of expertise or experience, a lack of familiarity with or understanding
of the school setting can undermine even the most well-intentioned
efforts. Community-based personnel need orientation, training,
and informal mentoring and support for their work in schools.