While you’re putting your energy into creating a positive mental health environment for children and young people, it’s also important to focus on your own wellbeing, and that of your colleagues.
Why your wellbeing matters
Your wellbeing influences:
- how you interact with children and young people
- your relationships with children and young people
- your ability to respond to challenging or unexpected situations
- your commitment and desire to remain an educator.
By looking after your own wellbeing, you can work to create the best possible version of yourself, both as a person and educator.
It will help you to cognitively, physically and emotionally perform your role over the long term.
Steps to positive wellbeing
- While others determine much of your work environment, individually you can take the following steps to protect and enhance your mental health and wellbeing.
- Identify what’s important to you, and what you want to change or do.
- Find a mentor to offer support, guidance, reassurance and accountability.
- Try to set realistic expectations for what you can achieve personally and professional.
- Engage in professional development that inspires and refreshes you.
- Think about eating well, sleeping well, saying no to unhelpful temptations, practicing and developing skills, learning from mistakes, celebrating wins and having outside hobbies or interests.
- Develop a wellbeing plan.
- Create new wellbeing habits.
Ultimately, taking responsibility for your mental health, and understanding that it’s key to success in your personal and professional life, is the most important action you can take.
Be You helps educators to look after their own mental health, so they can be their best selves to grow the mental health and wellbeing of the children and young people in their care. By using Be You, educators and learning communities can implement strategies that promote help seeking, create opportunities for career growth and personal development, acknowledge a job well done and offer resources for staff to build a sense of self-efficacy.
Check out the Be You Fact Sheet on Staff wellbeing.