An emotion is a complex psychological state that unites three distinct conditions—a subjective experience, a physiological response and a behavioural or expressive response. Emotions seem to rule our daily lives. Focus and dedication on the mental health and wellbeing of Teachers is just as important as taking precautions against the virus. Keeping in mind the ongoing need to coach teachers for emotional health at the time of the pandemic, sessions for all the teaching staff of Unity College were organized by the Aseema Charitable Trust from 17th to 19th January, 2022 via a digital platform, which was facilitated by Ms. Kausar Shaikh and Ms. Sharmeen Shah.
Experts highlighted the needs of support to mitigate the impact of mental stress of teachers by addressing and innovating simple things during home learning. The webinar highlighted emotional, psychological and social well-being of teachers at the time of the pandemic.
Objectives of the webinars were to:
● Understand the impact of COVID -19 on increasing levels of stress among teachers.
● Understanding causes of increasing stress and how to manage it.
● Provide suggestions and guidance to teachers forimproving their mental health.
Impact of Covid 19/Pandemic on teachers
• Fear and anxiety about a new disease
• Social isolation
• Changes in structured routine
• Feelings of uncertainty
• Feeling helplessness and lacking motivation
• Disrupted work life balance
• Stress-related responses
• Sensory overload
• Adjusting to the ‘new normal'.
The sessions covered the following points-
• Compassion fatigue
• Signs and symptoms of compassion fatigue.
• Importance of empathy
• Different types of self-care – Physical, Emotional, Social and Spiritual.
• Carving out time for Self-Care to maintain their Mental Health.
• Physical care by doing exercise, stretching, walking, yoga, meditation and sleep.
• Emotional care by building up their emotional resilience.
• Reaching out through communication.
The session was quite interactive with equal opportunities given to the teachers to participate and interact with the facilitator. It concluded with the viewpoint that more efforts shall be put into targeting the desired results in improving their mental health during the crisis.
The session made teachers aware on how to cope, adapt and grow as an online teacher and gave them insight into different well-being tips and guidelines to improve their emotional well-being which is the need of the hour
