Wellness and Sustainability: Healthy Educators, Healthy Classrooms

Supporting the health and wellness of early childhood educators is an often-overlooked aspect of running an ECE program. Putting a focus on wellness and sustainability will help keep educators healthy and motivated.

There are nearly 5 million early care and education professionals in the U.S. These professionals not only meet children’s most basic needs but also implement age-appropriate curriculum and support children’s social, emotional, and cognitive development.

We ask a lot from these professionals, as they respond to each child’s unique needs, providing individualized support that helps every child reach their full potential. And beyond those walls, educators also need to build strong relationships with families and communities to support the child’s whole development.

As a community, we all want healthy classrooms where children can learn and grow and reach their future full potential within our society. However, in order for that to happen, early childhood educators themselves need to be healthy and able to create that healthy environment. And that means treating educators as individuals who are as unique as the children in our care.

Healthy Educators

Despite their significant contributions, early childhood educators often face numerous challenges. There are factors we cannot get away from — by definition, it’s a labor-intensive field. While it’s a critical part of the economy, research shows it is marred by factors which can lead to physical, mental and emotional challenges.

It’s important to lean into a culture and environment aimed to set up employees for success at work and in their personal lives, such as offering a suite of benefits that can provide the needed support. When our employees feel valued, our children and families benefit.

Within the early childhood education community, we need to seize opportunities to come together, share best practices, and find ways that we can build resilience in our teams, and to create the positive spaces where employees feel they can perform at their best.

Finding Solutions

Catherine Hershey Schools for Early Learning will be hosting our third annual ECE Leaders Summit Feb. 25 and 26. We will focus on evidence-based approaches which support educators holistically, a topic of immense importance to our attendees.

It’s important to take a strengths-based approach to promoting SEL and reducing challenging behaviors. This means supporting educators in advancing social-emotional learning and managing classroom behaviors through an approach that focuses on identifying and leveraging children’s existing social and emotional strengths as a foundation for further development, rather than primarily addressing areas where they might struggle. This approach involves actively utilizing their positive qualities to build upon their SEL competencies across areas like self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making.

And of course, addressing the childcare staffing crisis is the elephant in the room. While there is no single, magic solution, leaders should focus on managing teams in ways that reduce burnout through innovation, operational solutions, technology, and engagement. While recruiting is an important part of managing a team, sustaining your existing staff is equally important. Burnout is not inevitable and building structures to support teams and build resilience require a multi-faceted approach.

What does this look like?

Continuous professional development is essential for educators to stay current with best practices and enhance their skills. Providing opportunities for training, workshops, and conferences can help educators grow professionally and feel more confident in their roles.

Understanding the emotional challenges: Building a strong support network and encouraging collaboration and communication among educators, families, and community members can create a sense of belonging and shared purpose. Mentorship programs and peer support groups can also provide valuable emotional and professional support. Recognizing and celebrating staff achievements and encouraging healthy work-life balance with clear boundaries are also ways to support emotional health.

Understanding the physical challenges: ECE teachers are moving throughout their day with physical demands such as bending, stooping, and squatting to lift and carry children as well as sitting on the floor or in child-sized furniture. All these activities require substantial fitness for these “educational athletes.” Access to healthy food choices, ergonomic training to prevent work-related injuries, and regular breaks can mitigate the physical demands of the role.

Understanding the mental challenges: At CHS we encourage our staff to practice mindfulness, and as a team, we always consider the ways that the quality of our relationships impacts us. We understand taking breaks creates mini opportunities to acknowledge personal mental wellness through yoga, meditation (using tools such as the CALM app offered as a benefit), and utilizing lunch break to nourish both mind and body. Access to confidential counseling and participating in professional development days with an added wellness component are other benefits that can help support people’s personal needs. Through this approach, we are learning that we can choose how we should show up in our relationships to have the desired impact, rather than acting in the moment. We cultivate self-awareness, activate our curiosity, and refine our communication—and when we do these things, we can be mindful of the impact we have with one another.

It’s very common in ECE to talk about taking a whole-child or whole-family approach. Let’s normalize taking a whole-teacher approach, too, where leaders understand that by supporting all aspects of a teacher’s growth and development, (including physical and emotional health) that is the best path to creating the outcomes we all want in our childcare centers.