It’s a conversation we have all heard before, Australian teachers and staff are overworked, burnt out and continue to face a rise in mental health problems.
But what is being done to solve the problem?
Over the last 30 years, many organisations have implemented interventions aimed at reducing work-related employee stress and stress-related illness.
This includes programs aimed at removing organisational sources of stress and interventions focused on individuals impacted by work stress before they lead to serious health and mental health problems.
Building on this strong foundation, a team of researchers from UQ’s School of Psychology conducted a pilot trial to determine the impact of a compassion-focused therapy (CFT) workshop for people in the education sector.
The industry challenges
Mental health claims due to psychological risks at work are a growing area of concern.
Research by Safe Work Australia in 2023, reported a substantial increase in mental health claims over the last decade, with compensation payouts almost 4 times that of other injuries.
Dr Karyn Healy said the risk is particularly high for Australian teachers who not only manage heavy workloads, but also emotionally challenging work.
“Managing students with behavioural problems, angry parents and supporting grief responses of children and families to stressful events, place a heavy burden on teachers,” Dr Healy said.
“Human Resources Managers supporting Australian schools regularly identify employees who are at risk for taking stress-related leave.
“But it’s not just a national problem, teachers across the world are struggling with the demands of the job and the burden is places on their mental and physical wellbeing.”
What did the study involve?
Associate Professor James Kirby said previous research has shown compassion to be helpful in improving emotional regulation, motivation and feelings of connectedness.
“We have conducted previous studies using compassion-focused interventions, which have been found to reduce depression, anxiety and stress in participants,” Dr Kirby said.
“Self-compassion is particularly beneficial for mental health and wellbeing, when someone is mindful of the present moment, compassion can inform actions to alleviate suffering for self or other.
“Given these results, we wanted to understand how compassion could be used to help people in the education sector.”
Working with Queensland’s Department of Education, the researchers aimed to evaluate whether a 2-hour CFT workshop was more effective in reducing stress and mental health problems than standard professional development programs.
Participants included over 100 education employees who enrolled in one of two standard professional development workshops aimed at reducing stress and improving wellbeing.
During the enrolment process, they were asked if they would be interested in participating in the trial of a CFT workshop.
Those who said yes were randomly assigned to either a standard professional development course or one that included CFT.
Both programs included cognitive behavioural and mindfulness strategies aimed at managing stress and prompted them to develop a personal wellbeing plan.
Those allocated to the program that included a CFT seminar, learnt additional practices focused on improving compassion for self, including generating compassionate wishes towards themselves.
What were the results?
Dr Healy said the findings were positive, providing preliminary evidence that CFT-enhanced training could help improve outcomes for teachers and school staff.
“The results showed very large reductions in burnout and clinically significant improvements in mental health problems under both workshops,” Dr Healy said.
“The findings also indicated the CFT enhanced training may produce better results in some areas such as traumatic stress and anxiety.
“However, the standard training produced better results for outcomes around stress, depression and resilience.”
Dr Kirby said the results are a building block to demonstrate how compassion-based therapies can be used to enhance wellbeing within the sector.
“Through more research, we hope to refine how we can incorporate compassion into programs to help improve the mental health and wellbeing of these important members of our community.”
Read more about the study in the Australian Journal of Management.
