Employee Wellness
Employee Wellness is 1 of the 10 interactive components making up the Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child Model. Healthy school employees—including teachers, administrators, bus drivers, cafeteria and custodial staff, as well as contractors—are more productive and less likely to be absent. They serve as powerful role models for students and may increase their attention to students’ health as well as student success.
How Right Now Mental Health Awareness
The Nebraska Department of Education, Office of Coordinated Student Support Services is thrilled to announce our partnership with the How Right Now (HRN) school educator campaign. This initiative is specifically designed to understand and support the unique needs of K-12 school administrators, teachers, and school staff who are facing high levels of stress, burnout, and anxiety. HRN offers a wealth of tailored resources and tools to increase awareness of emotional health issues, enhance coping skills, and improve adaptability and resilience. We believe in the value of your work and are committed to supporting you in every way we can.
Support your school and community utilizing this guide and visit https://bit.ly/3VnEatP to explore the available resources and social media graphics on the CDC website. Kindly consider sharing them with your networks!
**New Resource**
Take advantage of our Walk 2 Unlock platform as a staff wellness challenge!
Healthy School, Healthy Staff, Healthy Students – click to further explore these steps and check out the resources!
A comprehensive school employee wellness approach is a coordinated set of programs, policies, benefits, and environmental supports. To meet the health and safety needs of all employees, it’s designed to address multiple risk factors (e.g., lack of physical activity, tobacco use) and health conditions (e.g., diabetes, depression).
Partnerships between school districts and their health insurance providers can help offer resources, including personalized health assessments and flu vaccinations. Employee wellness programs and healthy work environments can improve a district’s bottom line by decreasing employee health insurance premiums, reducing employee turnover, and cutting costs of substitutes.
Connection Circle example by Jess Lawrence
The reality of public school education is that it is both exhilarating and stressful.
A focus on compassion resilience will guide a diverse staff back to the core set of values and the drive for a sense of purpose that drew them to work in schools in the first place. This toolkit offers information, activities, and resources for school leadership and staff to understand, recognize, and minimize the experience of compassion fatigue and to increase compassion resilience.
- Consider providing opportunities for physical activity like afterschool Zumba or yoga classes.
- Advocate for healthy meeting policies in your district.
- Provide on-site tools for physical activity such as exercise DVDs and equipment.
- Stock their break room or refrigerator with fruit and water a couple times a year.
- Provide tokens of teacher appreciation that aren’t food-based like collecting notes from parents and students expressing their gratitude.
- Host a step challenge and give out pedometers.
- Hold a water consumption challenge and provide shaker bottles
- Consider how improvements you make to your outdoor learning environment can benefit teachers such as a walking trail.
| Filling Your Cup: Comprehensive Self-Care Strategies eLearning Companion Guide | en español Use this guide to promote the Filling Your Cup eLearning, also available en español. After each module, use guiding questions and follow-up activities to extend the learning. |
| Self-Compassion and Emotion Regulation for Educators Identify times when you are emotionally activated in your teaching environment and which strategies you can use to help process and regulate emotions. |
| Get Recognized for Supporting Staff Well-Being Learn how your school can earn national recognition for focusing on staff well-being practices. |
| Summer Learning Awards | National Summer Learning Association Learn how your summer program can be nationally recognized for demonstrating excellence in accelerating academic achievement and promoting healthy development for low-income students, PK-12. |
Erika Wibbels
Program Specialist II
Office of Coordinated Student Support Services
erika.wibbels@nebraska.gov
(402) 219-3897