Photo by James Brisco

It is widely accepted that health and wellbeing problems are prevalent in the UK education workforce in particular among the teaching profession. However, there has been considerable debate over the best solutions to these problems.

As a result, Teacher Support Network has undertaken research and stakeholder consultation in order to make informed recommendations in this debate. Our findings are presented here.

We conducted a nationwide wellbeing survey of the workforce between October and November 2008, asking the professionals themselves for their views. The survey – completed by 777 people via our website and e-newsletter - also developed a snapshot of the current state of health and wellbeing in the workforce. The answers backed up what Teacher Support Network sees day after day through its free, confidential support services:

• 87 per cent of teachers had suffered from stress in the last two years. Two-thirds also said that they had experienced anxiety and 42 per cent had suffered from depression in the same period.
• Over 60 per cent of respondents said that issues in their workplace were responsible for these feelings.
• Problems such as trouble sleeping (82 per cent) and lack of concentration (53 per cent) were widespread, and some respondents had even considered suicide. Understandably, these symptoms were having a damaging impact on their work performance (figure 1).

Have the feelings you have experienced resulted in any of the following?

Figure 1

The scale and significance of health and wellbeing problems in the teaching profession are clear. Problems are prevalent and they are having a costly impact on students, colleagues and the individuals concerned. Taking time off work, for example, disrupts learning, puts colleagues under even greater stress and is extremely difficult for the professional in question.

We presented these findings to other key education and health and wellbeing specialists for discussion. In November 2008, we hosted a roundtable meeting with the National Director for Health and Work, Dame Carol Black, to take into account the expertise of key stakeholders, including: the DCSF, the Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health, IOSH, HSE and all of the leading teacher unions and related bodies.

The meeting followed a visit by Dame Carol Black to Teacher Support Network’s Contact Centre, which took place shortly after the release of her review of the health of Britain’s working age population in March 2008.

Details of our findings from the survey and roundtable meeting are set out here. These findings have been carefully considered to produce essential recommendations for improving the health and wellbeing of the education workforce, relating to: training, development, policies, procedure and the overall culture in education.

2008 wellbeing survey and roundtable meeting

Causes

Out of the survey respondents who stated that their experiences of difficulties, such as stress, were caused by issues in their workplace, over 78 per cent stated that it was due to excessive workload. 43 per cent stated that it was due to the rapid pace of change (figure 2).

Can you identify the main issue in your workplace that caused these feelings?

Figure 2

A number of roundtable participants argued that teaching, like other professions, was inevitably stressful. Nevertheless, all agreed that urgent attention needed to be given to the way in which schools and government treat the causes and occurrences of stress. It was pointed out that some of the best schemes for minimising stress were in the private sector, where employers are open about the possibility of stress and actively provide and promote support for it.

Of vital importance to the success of such support was the early identification of stress and other common mental health problems, enabling people to act quickly and prevent the rapid deterioration that can follow.

Impact

Representatives at the roundtable meeting agreed that stress and other common mental health problems can manifest themselves in a variety of physical and emotional ways; making everyday life even more challenging. 82 per cent of survey respondents said that they had been having trouble sleeping, 63 per cent had suffered from headaches and 53 per cent had experienced lack of concentration (figure 3).

Did you experience any of the following symptoms?

Figure 3

Other stated symptoms included nightmares, weight loss, severe anxiety and suicidal thoughts.

Inevitably, teachers’ work performance and personal lives are severely affected by these problems. Two-thirds of respondents said that their work performance, confidence and physical health had deteriorated as a result. Personal relationships had been affected in over half of the cases and around 30 per cent had taken time off work to cope. Worryingly, 13 per cent said that they had even resorted to leaving their jobs (figure 1).

Respondents also described other ways in which these problems had affected their lives, such as being forced to take long-term sick leave, thinking about moving schools, considering a career change and asking for voluntary redundancy.

Much of the roundtable debate focused on how these problems do not just affect the individuals concerned, but other staff, students, and eventually, society as a whole. The organisational and economic benefits of a healthy workforce were said to be greatest in education, and health and wellbeing solutions needed to be tailored to the sector. In the words of one attendee,the profession is “highly-qualified, highly-important….with a great deal to contribute.”

Overall, mental health problems were said to cost the economy £26 billion a year, or £1,000 for every person in employment.

Support

A critical first step in overcoming common mental health problems is recognising and acknowledging that life is becoming difficult and then finding someone to talk to about it. The majority of survey respondents stated that they spoke to their family, friends and partners about the problems they were experiencing. Only a small proportion of people spoke to their line manager, headteacher or employer (figure 5 below).

For those people who did not speak to anyone at work, over 37 per cent attributed this to the fact that it would be seen as a sign of weakness – a critical barrier to teachers finding adequate support and solutions to their difficulties.

Roundtable representatives agreed that teachers should not have to feel this way. There clearly needs to be a cultural shift in all schools where teachers feel that they are able to approach both colleagues and line managers for support. Awareness of support available through schools, local authorities or other providers needed to improve. Representatives said that this change needs to start at the top with Heads, senior managers, national stakeholders and Government Ministers all leading by example.

If quality support was made readily available and positively promoted in every school, staff would feel better supported and more able to cope with issues that they are facing.

A very low number of respondents spoke to Occupational Health about how they were feeling. When they did, over 25 per cent stated that they found them “not at all helpful” (figure 4 below). Roundtable representatives cited a number of research and anecdotal reports that showed considerable teacher mistrust towards local authority-provided occupational health services. Occupational Health was seen by many as a service that is closely linked to disciplinary processes and HR, which also rated badly, as opposed to a support service to turn to in a time of need. It is therefore important that those health services provided by schools are shaped to be more accessible and effective, as part of the Government’s Fit for Work service reforms.

On a scale of 1-5, with 1 being not at all helpful and 5 being extremely helpful, how helpful were the people that you spoke to?

Figure 4

Attendees also discussed the role of Governors. NUT Acting General Secretary, Christine Blower, said that governors “should understand better that it’s not just a question of health and safety”. Attendees believed that governors should take responsibility to monitor and improve workforce health and wellbeing with senior management.

Who did you speak to about how you were feeling?

Figure 5

School policy

In Teacher Support Network’s survey, over half of respondents were also unsure as to whether or not their school had a staff wellbeing policy, and, for those who were, over a quarter stated that it was never properly implemented.

Participants of the roundtable discussed how wellbeing policies are often not communicated effectively and that teachers had a right to know what to expect from their employer. They said that policies had to be accompanied with the will amongst school leaders to effectively deliver on staff wellbeing.

A majority of survey respondents were in favour of regulation to ensure that health and wellbeing standards are met. When asked how their mental health and that of others in the school would be improved, over 50 per cent of respondents agreed that it would help if “their school had to meet high standards of health and wellbeing provision for staff, regulated by an independent body” (figure 6 below).

In addition to this almost 70 per cent stated that their mental health would be improved if their managers worked with their staff to reduce workload. This, and other suggestions such as a ‘staff health and wellbeing programme’ and ‘pupil behaviour policy’ could be monitored by an independent regulator, and best practice could then be fed back into training and development.

A high proportion of respondents also stated that it would help if their colleagues were more understanding, and their leadership team were more approachable. Whilst regulation and other procedural change could help to achieve this, training and development reforms – giving staff a better understanding of how to approach and support colleagues - as well as an overall cultural change, would be crucial to achieving these aims.

My mental health and that of others in the school would be improved if:

Figure 6

Recommendations: The path to better health and wellbeing in education Teacher Support Network has begun work with key stakeholders to implement the following recommendations. By bringing cultural change to education, in part through reasonable reforms to training and development, policies and procedures, we believe that the health and wellbeing of the workforce can be vitally improved.

 

Training and Development

• Colleague health and wellbeing must become an integral part of training and development. All education staff must be trained to look after and work with each other effectively. The TDA and DCSF have made good progress in this area, and we will work with them wherever possible to continue reforms of all relevant training. Modern practices, such as emotional reaction and reflection, would empower more staff to address elements of their job that they find challenging,
  stressful or frustrating; improving health and wellbeing accordingly.
• Existing good guidance should be integrated into training and made as accessible as possible to all. We warmly welcome recent contributions by LGE, HSE and DCSF to distribute the ‘Common mental health problems’ guidance to all schools in England and Wales. We will continue to work with key stakeholders to ensure that good guidance is well known and consistently followed in the workplace.
• Training and development should be reviewed regularly within each school, ensuring that help is given to alleviate the key causes of poor health and wellbeing. We will urge employers and national stakeholders to tailor training and development to individual staff needs.

Policies and Procedures

• The Fit for Work service, recommended in Dame Carol Black’s 2007/8 Review, should be fully implemented as soon as possible. Occupational Health and other services should be critically assessed and reformed where required to form part of an effective, integrated support service for the workforce. We intend to work closely with the Government to tailor these services to education and remove existing barriers to healthy returns to work.
• The equivalent of a health and wellbeing consultancy service, also recommended in the Review, should operate in all education workplaces; drawing on the expertise of sector specialists such as Teacher Support Network and Worklife Support. We will support the Government with efforts to record and research causes of poor health and wellbeing and share findings with union and other stakeholder groups. This information can then be used to create positive incentives for education workplaces to improve staff health and wellbeing, through additional funding for example.
• An independent body should regulate workplaces to ensure that they meet high standards of health and wellbeing provision for staff, subject to wider workforce consultation and successful piloting. Regulators could feedback best practice into training and development. We will develop this further with key stakeholders.
• Governors must regularly monitor and improve staff health and wellbeing policies, which should be mandatory and well implemented in all workplaces. We will campaign for Governors to be given the right training and responsibilities to most effectively protect and improve staff health and wellbeing.

Culture

Figure 7

• The ‘sign of weakness’ stigma for health difficulties must be stopped. Cultural change should start at the top. Everyone from school Heads and senior managers to national stakeholders and Government Ministers can set an example to others on health and wellbeing. The above recommendations would take education significantly forward, but a change in public attitudes and behaviour would still be a crucial driver in ensuring that we all naturally and openly support each other’s health and wellbeing.
  
  Not being afraid to admit when things become difficult and being able to talk to the people who have the ability to make a difference is crucial and in a school context, is dependent on the working environment created by school leaders and other staff.

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Comment from the National Director for Health and Work

Dame Carol Black

“My Review into the health of the working age population highlighted a number of key issues in promoting good health and wellbeing, and preventing ill-health, in the workplace. Among these were the critical importance of the line manager, and the urgent need to address the growing problem of common mental health problems such as stress and anxiety. The Government have now responded very positively to my Review and taken on board all my recommendations, and have also asked me to chair a steering group of experts drawn from a range of professions and backgrounds to develop a new national strategy on mental health and employment.

This report highlights the worrying levels of avoidable or needlessly prolonged health and wellbeing problems among those who work in education, particularly the high levels of common mental health problems, and the fact that teachers often feel they lack adequate support from their line managers to help them cope with the demands of their work. Such problems cause clear distress to individuals and their families, as well as having a profound impact on school communities and society in general.

I have long been a supporter of both the aims and approach of Teacher Support Network. I welcome this report and hope that the recommendations it makes are implemented in order to improve standards in education, and the lives of both teachers and their students.”

Professor Dame Carol Black (DBE, FRCP, FMedSci),
National Director for Health and Work

Attached file(s):
• Path to Better Health and Wellbeing Report (PDF)