Teacher and Director Well Being

Supporting Teacher Mental Health 

Now more than ever, the need to support  teacher-well being is paramount. Being with children through troubled times is emotionally draining and evocative! Working to give children what they need socially and emotionally as well as cognitively can challenge teacher’s own equilibrium in the best of times, and we are not in the best of times!

Shared professional development sessions with groups from each member school attending allow participating teachers time and space to reflect on their practice and to listen to other professionals who do similar work.

The sessions work to diminish emotional isolation within the teaching community, to offer participants parallel forms of expression to those that  can be invited in their classrooms and to support a professional competence when confronted with complex classroom dynamics.

When teachers are invited to have an expressive voice for their experiences being among children for hours every day, they may feel less burdened, more available and more joyful as they interact with the social and emotional lives of the children in their classrooms.

Supporting Directors and School Leaders: Our Directors Forum

Our Directors Forum meets quarterly at the West Side Montessori School on the Upper West Side. This group allows school leaders to come together to share experiences with children, parents and teachers as well as be in the “good company” of others who know the demands of the work. Leadership can be isolating. The Directors Forum can diminish emotional and social isolation through sharing within a therapeutic environment and an emotionally responsive framework provided by the facilitator.