More information
Description
Currently, there is an increasing need for psychological and emotional wellbeing at school. According to all our research work, including the Desk Research report, there is a need to implement development programs for teachers especially regarding psychological resilience, because the job burnout among teachers seems to be a very serious social and pedagogical problem. Children should be taught the good habits supporting their mental health and wellbeing from an early age.The aim of the project is to develop and implement innovative methods and educational tools on psychological resilience for teachers and school children and conducting pilot tests, reports and recommendations during a two-year project, with a group of minimum 110 teachers. In the group of the final beneficiaries should be teachers and people working with children, school children, parents. The group of intermediate beneficiaries will consist of teachers, school staff, institutions supporting school education and educators.A psychological resilience guide for school teachers (240 pages in electronic and paper version) is to be prepared; Training package for teachers, tools and exercises for teachers to work with each other (multimedia resources); a report on research and an analysis of the pilot training for teachers, recommendations and articles; 2 brochures with exercises for children and instructions for teachers and people working with children and parents (about 70 pages).We estimate that up to 5 years after the end of the project over 2,000 teachers will get involved with these tools and the project in a direct and indirect manner will affect more than 100,000 children (change in the teachers’ attitude, exercises for children at school or at home).
Summary of project results
Nowadays, we see an increasing need to take care of mental and emotional well-being in schools. According to our pre-project research, there is a need for teacher development programmes on mental resilience, as professional burnout among teachers is a very serious social and pedagogical problem. Good habits of caring for wellbeing should be developed in children at the earliest possible age.
The aim of the project was to develop and implement innovative educational methods and tools on mental resilience for teachers and school children and to carry out a pilot study, report and recommendations during the two-year project with over 100 collaborating teachers.
The beneficiaries are teachers and those working with children and school children.
Indirect beneficiaries - school staff, parents, institutions supporting school education.
A psychological resilience guide for school teachers in electronic and paper version distributed during the conference was prepared; a training package for teachers, tools and exercises for teachers to work with each other and with children (multimedia resources); research and analysis report of the pilot teacher training, recommendations and articles; 2 brochures with stories for children.
During the project, two LTT trainings were held for staff of partner institutions, more than 100 videos were recorded, research was conducted and a report was prepared. The school wellbeing package for students has exercises for working with children and interesting story booklets. All materials are placed on a learning platform and available to teachers on edu.understanding.pl where most materials are in 2 language versions PL/ENG.
The evaluation of the project by the teachers and the results of the surveys have shown a high level of relevance of both the project materials and the training and project activities (competitions, motivational campaigns, webinars) All agree that the methods need to be practised and used regularly to be effective.
An excellent summary of the project and its results is the prepared article: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1WG_xilVbiWWVlYWarMinVVv8DTGez2jb6aFDB-_9wjo/edit?usp=sharing.
More material and information can be found on the project website www.understanding.pl and on the youtube channel https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLvoQYSmfB02EYqAAX3lZ2csnet7eztT6_.
Summary of bilateral results
The Art of Living Iceland inspired us during the Study Visit to work with children and people at risk of social exclusion or already excluded - such as prisoners or people in addiction treatment centres. In the first part of the project, the experts and staff of the Understanding Foundation learned from AOLI, hence the first LTT was in Iceland, then we all created content and materials and taught each other (together with the teachers) on the LTT in Poland. The mutual cooperation (despite the difficulties) brought (in our opinion and the opinion of the audience) very high quality materials, methods and results of this cooperation. We learned a lot from AOLI about how to work with schools, how to plan wellbeing-influencing residential training, how to organise such training. A huge contribution was made by experts from AOLI regarding breathing techniques, meditation and yoga. We intend to continue our cooperation and support each other in the mutual development of both organisations.