How Right Now: Addressing the Urgent Mental Health and Emotional Well-Being Concerns Among K-12 Teachers and School Staff

Theoretical Background and research questions/hypothesis: To help people cope with mental health challenges in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), with support from the CDC Foundation, enlisted NORC at the University of Chicago to adapt the How Right Now (HRN) communication campaign. HRN addresses mental health needs of groups disproportionately affected by the pandemic and beyond. It is expanding reach to K-12 teachers and school staff, given their increased stress and declining mental health since the pandemic. There are six research questions of interest that guided the formative work: 1) What are the most urgent mental and behavioral health challenges facing teachers/school staff of interest today? 2) What are teachers/school staff feeling generally about COVID-19 and the current cultural climate? 3) What does resilience as related to mental health mean to teachers/school staff? 4) What are teachers’/school staff’s needs for mental health resources/support? 5) What mental health resources and support exist to help teachers/school staff who may be in distress? 6) What are trusted sources/channels to provide messages to teachers/school staff about mental health and support? This presentation provides formative work results informing the tailored messages being developed for teachers and school staff.

Methods: The aims of the multi-mode formative work were to evaluate teachers’ and school staff’s urgent mental health challenges, feelings about COVID-19, definitions of resilience, trusted sources/channels, available mental health resources, and resource needs. Data sources included peer-reviewed/grey literature; the RAND American Educator Panel secondary data surveys from 2021-2022; “Teacher Twitter”; and online focus groups. Data across modalities were triangulated to assess study aims.

Results: Findings across data collection modalities suggest that teachers and school staff are experiencing declining mental health and negative impacts on their emotional well-being in the wake of the pandemic. The most urgent mental health challenges teachers are facing are burnout, increased expectations due to lack of class coverage and staff shortage, stress due to a decline in student achievement, and work/life balance. Resilience looked different for teachers, principals, school nurses, counselors, and other school staff. Coping strategies varied based on various factors such as social support, access and availability of resources, and environment. Many teachers turned to trusted voices (e.g., administrators) and channels (e.g., social media) for support to learn techniques to improve their mental health.

Conclusions: Considering these results, we discuss the need for actionable campaign messages that reflect concerns voiced by teachers and school staff, with a particular focus on lifting up the trusted voices and channels identified by teachers as critical sources of support.

Implications for research and/or practice: Implications from these findings will help to develop tailored messaging for teachers and school staff to help support their mental health needs.