Trauma-informed Teacher Wellbeing : Teacher Reflections within Trauma-informed Positive Education

• Published in: The Australian journal of teacher education Vol. 46; no. 5; pp. 91 - 107
• Main Authors: Brunzell, Tom, Waters, Lea, Stokes, Helen
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Edith Cowan University 01.05.2021
• Subjects: Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs); Burnout; Coronavirus (COVID-19); Foreign Countries; Interpersonal Competence; Intervention; Interviews; Learning in an emergency; Pandemic pedagogy; Phenomenology; Positive psychology; Primary education; Primary school teachers; Psychological needs; Qualitative research; Reflection; Stress Management; Systematic reviews; Teacher attitudes; Teacher Burnout; Teacher education; Teacher retention; Teaching Methods; Trauma; Trauma informed positive education (TIPE); Well Being; Australia
• DOI: 10.14221/ajte.2021v46n5.6
• ISSN: 0313-5373; 1835-517X

For the last 15 years, teacher wellbeing has been a priority area of exploration within education and positive psychology literatures. However, increasing teacher wellbeing for those who educate students impacted by trauma has yet to be comprehensively explored despite repeated exposure of teachers to child trauma and their experiences of associated negative effects such as secondary traumatic stress, vicarious traumatisation, compassion fatigue and burnout. This study follows teachers' understandings and reflections upon their own wellbeing after learning the literatures supporting trauma-informed positive education. Interpretative phenomenological analysis was used as the methodological approach to represent teachers (N = 18) in order to privilege the language, voices and experiences of participants. Results yielded a new set of domains of trauma-informed teacher wellbeing to assist teachers to increase their own wellbeing when working with students. The likely upsurge in students and teachers across the world experiencing trauma symptoms (primary and vicarious) arising from the COVID-19 global pandemic makes this research timely and relevant. [Author abstract]