Who Holds You?…
Over on Facebook, I reposted an excellent article by Uplift Connect about how to hold space for people in difficult times.
In the article the author movingly describes how a dedicated cancer nurse was able to hold space for the family, as they held space for their dying Mum. The nurse, in turn, had someone to hold space for her as she processed the powerful emotions that would inevitably emerge. On my facebook page, I posed the simple question who holds you? As you provide support for people as they grow, transform, grieve, face challenging circumstances, who holds you?
The response from the teaching profession seemed to be nobody. Nobody holds teachers. I reposted the question on Twitter. Are there any schools out there pro-actively supporting the mental health of their teachers? Silence.
A recent poll on teacher wellbeing ( link) found that almost half of teachers said that their own mental health was poor or very poor, and 15% reported taking medication because of the stresses of their work. And I believe it is not simply down to workload.
Teachers are in the front line working with children and families in incredibly challenging circumstances. They will know of traumatic incidents in children’s lives, and deal with ongoing cases of abuse and neglect. They will support children as they work through bereavement, substance abuse at home, family crises, poverty, ill health, disability. Children will display complex and challenging behaviours as a result. I met with a SENCO recently who currently has 30 children in her school on the child protection register. It is a small school. As she handled the case notes on the child we were reviewing I saw her visibly retract and shiver. She was experiencing a direct physical response to the trauma detailed within it.
As normal empathic people, we do care. We respond emotionally and physically to the pain of others. This is normal. But we have to find a way to also let it go, before it damages us and becomes our pain too.
Imagine that each of us is a cup. And into your cup people pour their own emotions, stresses, troubles and worries. They feel better. They’ve emptied their cup a little. You hold these emotions. You are so good at holding these emotions for other people that they come to you more and more. Your cup quickly fills up.
But if there is no way for you to empty your cup, it will inevitably overflow. Your own emotions become difficult to contain. Seemingly small things will begin to trigger disproportionate responses of anger, rage, sadness or anxiety. You may have difficulty sleeping. If this goes on for a long time unchecked, mental or physical illness will almost inevitably develop.
Sucessive governments claim to make mental health a priority, and proposed that every secondary school in the country be offered mental health first aid training and new trials to look at how to strengthen the links between schools and local NHS mental health staff. I would suggest that if teachers are being requested to support the mental health of their students, then support for their own mental health should be considered paramount. Tony McLaren, the National Co-ordinator of Breathing Space has said that “in an ideal world, every school would have a counsellor that any teacher or pupil could drop into”.
I’d love to hear of how you find ways to protect your own mental health. And I’d especially love to hear from you if you work in a school that understands that you need holding too.