Tips for Promoting School Employee Wellness

Key points

  • Wellness is more important than ever for school employees to help with stress and anxiety in the workplace.
  • Wellness activities can be simple and don’t necessarily take a lot of time or resources.
  • School staff who practice good physical and mental health behaviors, help support students’ health and academic success.
  • A school employee wellness program can be organized by administrators, school health teams, or even a single school staff member wanting to make a difference.
A group of teachers doing exercising and playing volleyball outdoors.

Why it's important

Wellness is more important than ever for school employees. In a March 2020 survey, teachers were asked to describe the emotions they felt most often each day. Anxiety was the most common.

Physical activity is an activity you can implement to help lower stress and anxiety.

Resource‎

Healthy School, Healthy Staff, Healthy Students
A Guide to Improving School Employee Wellness

Tips

Try these employee wellness activities to support physical and mental health.

  • Remind staff about employee assistance programs with access to resources, referrals, and counseling.
  • Recognize staff contributions and achievements and celebrate milestones with others.
  • Hold exercise challenges (e.g., steps challenge, exercise minutes challenge).
  • Find and share stress management and mental health resources and information.
  • Build in physical activity breaks during the school day (can be done along with students).
  • Have mindfulness meditation breaks for staff and students during the school day.
  • Provide or attend professional development on social-emotional skills, trauma-informed approaches (understanding the impact of trauma on the individual), and resilience.

Watch what teachers and school staff have to say about the importance of employee wellness.

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Resources

Suicide and crisis lifeline‎‎

If you, or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, help is available now. Call or text 988 or chat 988lifeline.org.
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Content Source:
Division of Adolescent and School Health; National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion