Prioritise mental health wellness for teachers, officials say

FOLLOWING the reopening of schools last week, mental health professionals have given the local education system a failing grade for not prioritising mental wellness among the country’s greatest assets — its educators.

Lamenting that problems that existed before have now been exacerbated by the novel coronavirus pandemic, the clinicians argue that counselling sessions should be mandatory for teachers as their roles are highly demanding.

Camille Campbell, associate counselling psychologist at the Counselling and Therapeutic Play Centre told the Jamaica Observer that considering the nature of teaching, therapy for those who do it was a must.

“In COVID I was called in by a school to do a presentation with the teachers on stress management. That is what you mostly find, or psychologists being called into schools to do a workshop or training, but never an individual teacher coming in. I have never seen that. I don’t know if it happens, but I have never seen it. What you will find is more students coming in saying they are feeling overwhelmed with school work,” she said in an interview last Wednesday.

In 2019 the Jamaica Teachers’ Association (JTA) said the organisation, which represents the majority of the island’s public school teachers, has guidance counsellors in place at the disposal of teachers.

Campbell said some teachers just see what happens in a classroom on a day-to-day basis as the norm and would just sum up that experience by saying, “Children give trouble and every other job is stressful,” while not seeking professional help.

“And then there is the cost to it and all of that. It’s not like a person is going to readily say, ‘Okay, I’m going to put up this amount of money to do counselling because the work is stressful.’ When I did some training at a particular school, it seemed that they really needed it,” she told the Sunday Observer.

“And one thing I questioned to myself is why isn’t it mandatory. The truth is teachers are leaving home where there are challenges, there are challenges at school, classes overload with students… there’s a whole lot of stressful factors,” Campbell added.

Campbell contended that therapy for teachers should be staple in the education sector.

“I really think it should be mandatory, in terms of having a place to vent, a place to work out problem solving, how to calm you so you can calm a child… that kinda thing. It should have been in the system where that is concerned because these things are important.”

In May 2022, following the death of nine teachers in little over a week, then president of the JTA Winston Smith said he believes the high stress levels in the nation’s classrooms contributed to the incidents.

He further urged teachers to implement relaxation exercises to relieve stress and called for spiritual intervention on behalf of teachers.

James Dibbs, founder and CEO of Sajirah Assessments and Intervention Services Ltd told the Sunday Observer that it is not a matter of whether or not therapy should be mandatory for educators, but really a need to acknowledge the increasing necessity for such.

“It is necessary based on the way our schools operate. Teachers work under extensive stress. Granted, they are supposed to be on break from July to September and they are supposed to recoup. But the way things are now, it’s even worse because they are asked to catch up. And so therapy is necessary,” he said.

Dibbs, vice-chairman on the board of a school he wished not to name, added that the topic of mental health surrounding teachers is one of great concern to him.

“Until they clear the mental health issue with the children,