Venture:
Healing Schools Project
Founders:
Wenimo Okoya '14PH '19TC
Industry:
Education
Venture Type:
Nonprofit
What is the social or environmental issue being addressed?
America is experiencing the great teacher resignation. Millions of teachers are quitting, leaving millions of students to flounder. K-12 teachers, especially teachers of color, are feeling overworked, burnt out, and needing support from their community and their school leaders.
Educators report higher burnout, stress, depersonalization, and depressive symptoms as reasons for leaving the field. If schools do not address educator mental health, teachers will continue to leave and we will not be able to create an equitable education system for students, especially those most marginalized.
While student mental health has been lifted up in schools’ agendas, educator mental health continues to be unaddressed. Schools and districts need a solution that centers the mental health of their most marginalized teachers and helps them address the root causes of the problem.
Innovation:
We help schools retain teachers by providing an anti-racist approach to mental health and well-being support. This requires both building practices to care for oneself (self-care) and each other (community care), as well as changing school policies, practices, and culture.
Most interventions for educators focus on self-care and ignore community care and working conditions. When educators are cared for and supported, they are more likely to stay. Cared-for educators who stay will reinforce a positive culture of care, support, and learning within the school, for themselves, their colleagues, and their students.
Read More:
- Newark Teachers Focus on Mental, Emotional Healing After Challenging School Year
Chalkbeat Newark
August 12, 2022 - New Program Emerges in Newark That Helps Teachers Deal With Stress and Anxiety
CBS New York
September 22, 2022 - Philanthropy Aims to Diversify Teacher Workforce Amid Staffing Shortages
EdWeek Market Brief
April 8, 2022