Healing Our Education Communities
Coming Together to Heal Our Educator Workforce
The Healing Our Education Communities program provides teachers, social workers, paraprofessionals, speech therapists, occupational therapists, special education teachers, and coaches the opportunity and time to recover, care for, and connect with themselves to cope with the stress and anxiety of everyday work.
Hosted by 1440 Multiversity and born out of a debt of gratitude for the tireless efforts of these workers, this restorative three-day, two-night workshop program at the 75-acre nonprofit 1440 Multiversity campus in the Santa Cruz Mountains and accompanying post-campus Circles of Belonging programs are offered for free. It is funded by generous donors, sponsors, and partners in order to support the mental health and physical, emotional, and spiritual rejuvenation of education staff so they can begin to recover from COVID-19-associated stresses both inside and outside of the classroom.
An Urgent Need for Support
A recent survey found that nearly 25 percent of teachers indicated a desire to leave their jobs at the end of the school year, compared with an average national turnover rate of 16 percent pre-pandemic. Educators are experiencing heightened levels of burnout, compassion fatigue, secondary trauma symptoms, disempowerment and more, all the while being challenged to create and maintain connections and curriculums in virtual, hybrid and in-person environments.
The demands of the job; managing the stress and anxiety of parental concerns; and even having access to the proper equipment and internet for teachers and students to do their work are just a few of the troubling issues that educators are facing, which require top-of-the-line healing and supportive care addressed by Healing Our Education Communities.
It's Time to Begin the Healing Process
Teachers, social workers, paraprofessionals, speech therapists, occupational therapists, special education teachers and coaches are invited to participate in this program for free through a nomination process or sponsorship.
The Healing Our Education Communities program will consist of four cohorts, the first one beginning in February 2022, and include a comprehensive curriculum that addresses wellbeing by providing the educator access to information, skills, and tools to help prioritize, care for, and support their mental health and physical, emotional, and spiritual rejuvenation to better cope with the stresses of their work and connecting with their students and families in meaningful ways. Participants will leave with a renewed sense of purpose; tools that enable processing of grief and beginning healing; and a sense of deep gratitude from the communities they serve.