AUTHOR=Gearhart Cassandra A. , Blaydes Madison , McCarthy Christopher J. 

TITLE=Barriers to and Facilitators for Teachers’ Wellbeing

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Psychology

VOLUME=Volume 13 - 2022

YEAR=2022

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.867433

DOI=10.3389/fpsyg.2022.867433

ISSN=1664-1078

ABSTRACT=Teaching is widely recognized as a stressful profession, which has been connected to burnout and high turnover of qualified teachers. Despite increasing attention on and promotion of teacher well-being, interventions are often underutilized and demonstrate small effect sizes. It is likely that intervention effectiveness is limited by teachers’ ability to access these well-being resources within the complex educational systems they inhabit. The current study explored teachers’ experiences of barriers to and facilitators for well-being resource access from a socioecological perspective. Teachers’ recommendations for addressing barriers were also explored. Inductive thematic analysis was used to identify themes across four focus groups. Personal barriers (e.g., guilt about self-prioritization), environmental barriers (e.g., mixed-messages about self-care), and improved campus resources (e.g., scheduled opportunities to destress) were common themes. Recommendations for supporting teachers’ well-being activities include campus-wide messaging on time, organizational interventions, and campus-based approaches.