Support for teachers and the wider VI education workforce
There may be times when your emotional wellbeing and mental health is affected by work. The following organisations can offer support and advice.
Shout Crisis Textline
If you need immediate support, you can text SHOUT to 85258 and chat by text. The service is free on most networks and available 24/7, and trained volunteers will listen to you, and work with to help you take the next steps towards feeling better.
- Education Support Partnership is a UK charity dedicated to improving the wellbeing and mental health of the entire education workforce. Their free and confidential helpline is available 24/7 throughout the UK on 08000 562561. It provides practical and emotional support to trainee, serving and retired teachers, school staff and their families. Through coaching, counselling, information and money advice, the charity helps tens of thousands of school employees each year on the phone or online.
- Supporting staff wellbeing – a guide from “mentally healthy schools”
- Anna Freud Booklet – Supporting Staff wellbeing in Schools
- Mental health helplines – list compiled by NHS website
- Bereavement support – visit Cruse Bereavement Care or phone: 0844 477 9400 (Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm).
Related news
Mental health experts to advise DfE on teacher wellbeing – the Department will “look at what government, local authorities and academy trusts can do to promote wellbeing”, Education Secretary Damian Hinds told the Association of School and College Leaders’ (ASCL) annual conference.
Teachers are essential frontline workers who need more mental health support, the Duchess of Cambridge: “It is vital that we support teachers with their own wellbeing so that they can find the best level of care for all children, in their schools and communities in which they work,” she told the Royal Foundation’s Mental Health in Education conference in central London.
In 2018, the charity Education Support Partnership published their
Teacher Wellbeing Index 2018, conducted in partnership with YouGov. This was a robust piece of research highlighting a stress epidemic and rising mental health issues across the entire UK education workforce.A report by the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) looking at the issues facing the teacher workforce in England shows that job-related stress is higher among teachers than other professionals.