This tumultuous time has taken its toll on us all. For our youngest learners and our early childhood educators and school leaders, the disruption and uncertainty have long-term mental-health consequences.
As we think about our "new normal", we need to be sure we are supporting our educators and school leaders and helping them to understand, deal with and manage their stress, anxiety, frustration, and emotions.
At the heart of all we do at Housman Institute is the understanding that children develop within the context of relationships. It is critical that these adults understand and have the tools to manage their own emotions in order to best model and guide children in their emotional development. When our brains are cluttered with emotions, stress, anxiety...we cannot focus, problem solve, think critically or simply be our best selves. Having the key tools of emotional intelligence not only provides an understanding of how to regulate and manage emotions and difficult situations but also provides the opportunity for professional and personal growth and satisfaction.
Now more than ever all educators are experiencing tremendous levels of stress. The impact that stress and anxiety have on educators takes a toll not only on their mental health and well-being but also on their ability to teach and our students’ ability to learn. If you are struggling with stress, anxiety, frustration, and an overload of emotions you simply cannot be your best or do your best. There is a lot of pressure squarely on the shoulders of educators and school leaders. Our educator and school leadership programs are designed to help educators develop the key social-emotional tools to carry with them not only for their personal and professional growth and satisfaction but also so they can best model for and guide the children in their care in their emotional development.
We know that when educators are calm and focused they are more effective in their role to successfully guide and teach children. With more and more emphasis on the importance of social and emotional learning for children, we cannot ignore the stress and emotions that educators are experiencing. Teachers are key socializers for the children they care for and educate. If they are not attending to their own mental health and well-being, they are not able to appropriately model behavior for children to emulate. Children are emotional detectives, and when they perceive the important adults in their world as stressed or anxious they pick up on those emotions. When educators are overwhelmed by stress and anxiety, and cannot successfully manage and regulate their own emotions, their performance can’t help but suffer. They cannot be there for their classroom, and they cannot help their children with their own social and emotional learning and needs. For school leaders at the hub of all that swirls around them, they are the focal point that children, staff, and families look to for guidance, stability, and a sense that all is well. It is key that school leaders who set the tone for the entire school community have the skills to manage their own emotions, deal with the emotions of their community with empathy and be able to have the skills of self-awareness, reflective practice, and communication to effectively build a stable and successful school climate for all.
At Housman Institute we have developed two professional development courses to support educator well-being. We have designed one to specifically support teachers and one to specifically support school leaders. Through each program, participants will gain an understanding of their emotions and the skills they need to regulate and manage their stress and anxiety. School leaders will gain an understanding of how to support emotional well-being at the school or district community level and develop the skills of Reflective Practice. To help support educators" busy schedules, we designed the courses to be self-paced so educators can complete them at their leisure.
Educators' Emotional Well-Being is a comprehensive self-paced five-course program created specifically to address the emotional well-being of early childhood and elementary educators, caregivers, and specialists. Through the program, teachers will gain an understanding of their emotions and the skills they need to regulate and manage their stress and anxiety. The program is completely self-paced so teachers can complete it at their leisure. The Program Includes:
This important leadership course, Reflective Practice: Self-Awareness, Communication, and Problem Solving, provided by Housman Institute, is designed to support leaders within the school community in using self-awareness, self-reflection, reflective practice, stress-management techniques, and an understanding of one’s own emotionality to begin transforming the entire school community. In this course, leaders will learn how to implement Reflective Practice, adapted from Reflective Supervision to improve their school-wide practices and support systems within the school community.
The program serves as a way to support leaders in dealing with the many stressors that they experience on a daily basis and establish systems within leadership practices to manage the stress of all members of the school community.
This Three-Course Self-Paced Program Includes:
Founder
Dr. Donna Housman, Ed.D