Stressed-out teachers to get support service

STRESSED and bullied teachers will have access to dedicated counsellors under a new service set up to help avoid a negative impact on their work in the classroom.

The employee assistance service announced by Education Minister Mary Hanafin has been long sought by teacher unions as other public servants have had similar schemes for many years.

The country’s 55,000 teachers will have access to the service, with telephone or face-to-face advice available, as part of a €2 million occupational health strategy for the profession.

Ms Hanafin said people in any kind of job can face difficulties, such as family problems, ill health, bereavement and stress that make it harder to do their work to the best of their abilities.

“The new service aims to address problems that a teacher may be experiencing at the earliest stage. Ideally, what it will be looking to do is tackle issues before a problem manifests itself and affects a teacher’s performance in the classroom setting, which ultimately affects pupils,” she said.

Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland (ASTI) general secretary John White said stress is the biggest occupational health hazard for teachers.

“Second-level teaching is a high-intensity job. High public expectations, continuous implementation of new education law, the burden of increasing administrative work, and the strain of meeting the challenges of disruptive behaviour by a minority of students can take their toll on even the most experienced and committed teachers,” he said.

Irish National Teachers’ Organisation (INTO) general secretary John Carr also welcomed the initiative and said teachers had waited long enough for such a scheme.

“When a person spends more time worrying about their job than actually doing it, burnout and breakdown are the results. This important group of workers was left without a support service for too long,” he said.

“The kind of difficulties teachers might experience includes bullying at work, assaults by pupils or stress,” Mr Carr said.

Teachers’ Union of Ireland (TUI) president Tim O’Meara said it is vital that unions are given an opportunity to monitor the effectiveness of the scheme, to be run by VHI Corporate Solutions.

“It is essential that the Department of Education launch a campaign to ensure all teachers are fully aware of the services now available to them. We also anticipate that all represented by TUI, such as those working in VTOS, adult and Traveller Education are covered by the scheme,” he said.