International Christian school staff and leaders, what would you include in an action plan designed to increase the resilient well-being of students, staff, and leaders?

/ mkessenburg

Photo by Jason Goodman on Unsplash

Collaboratively create and implement a schoolwide action plan designed to increase the resilient well-being of students, staff, and leaders. Why?

(1) Because increasing resilient well-being helps students, staff, and leaders flourish.

(2) Because increasing resilient well-being helps students, staff, and leaders develop healthy relationships, fully focus on learning and teaching, and lead godly, healthy, productive lives.

(3) Because not addressing resilient well-being increases the likelihood that students, staff, and leaders will be lonely or develop unhealthy relationships, be only partially focused on learning and teaching, and possibly lead ungodly, unhealthy, and unproductive lives.

(4) Because planning and working to increase resilient well-being are best practices.

What would you include in an action plan designed to increase the resilient well-being of students, staff, and leaders? What comes to mind for me includes purpose, priority, policy, plans, process, program, and practices. 

Let me explain:

(1) Purpose: Connect your purpose, your why, to your action plan on well-being. Connect your Christ-centered purpose statements (for example, mission, vision, philosophy) to resilient well-being and take steps to ensure everyone has shared understanding around those connections.

For example, we want to address well-being because it helps us flourish, as reflected in our vision statement: Students, staff, and leaders holistically flourishing in Jesus and helping others flourish.

(2) Priority: Demonstrate that well-being is a priority by creating a vision script for what it looks like for students, staff, and leaders at your international Christian school to consistently experience resilient well-being. Here are sample vision scripts:

Students consistently experiencing good health, due to regular exercise and a good diet (see Construct: Healthy Living, p. 18); personal durability in times of crisis (see Construct: Resilience, p. 18); a safe, nurturing, Christ-centered environment; and a living curriculum (staff) that models resilient well-being.

Staff consistently experiencing adequate time to do their work (see Construct: Stress, p. 18); consistent exercise and personal devotions; a safe, nurturing, Christ-centered environment; and a living curriculum (leadership) that models resilient well-being.

Leaders consistently experiencing regular exercise, healthy food, sufficient sleep (see Construct: Stress, p. 18); daily devotions; a safe, nurturing, Christ-centered environment; and a supportive board that monitors the leaders’ well-being and provides proactive care.

*Note: Having vision scripts for students, staff, and leaders helps you more efficiently and effectively work to increase well-being by painting a more detailed picture of what flourishing looks like and by sparking motivation.

(3) Policy: Ask the board to create a policy on staff well-being and to require the leader to report on it annually. Here, for example, is a very rough draft of a possible board policy: 

Maintain a flourishing workplace culture in which staff consistently experience the 5 elements of flourishing (passionate purpose, resilient well-being, healthy relationships, transformative learning, and helpful resources) and in which the 6 causes of burnout (“[u]nsustainable workload”, “[p]erceived lack of control”, “[i]nsufficient rewards for effort”, “[l]ack of supportive community”, “[l]ack of fairness”, and “[m]ismatched values and skills” [Beyond Burned Out]) are addressed. 

(4) Plans: Collaboratively develop and implement a schoolwide Well-Being Culture Plan (see blog post). Next, invite staff to transition from using professional development plans, to Personalized Flourishing Plans (which include professional development and address personal well-being).

(5) Process: Establish a process for monitoring, assessing, and increasing the well-being of students, staff, and leaders. Here’s an example:

To improve our well-being culture, we use monthly staff meetings (to address well-being) and we use our accreditation domain committee on well-being. This committee annually reviews (A) well-being survey data; (B) our vision for well-being, our action plan for achieving our vision, and the progress we’ve made toward achieving our vision; and (C) our Well-Being Culture Plan. The domain committee on well-being then recommends action steps.

Photo by CDC on Unsplash

(6) Program: Integrating social emotional learning into our program is an effective way to help students enhance their well-being. Looking for a place to start? Do a book discussion on All Learning is Social and Emotional.

(7) Practices: For real change to happen, daily practices need to change. So, for example, ask leaders to include a well-being component in each of the meetings they lead. Leaders could do this by asking, “What’s a recent high and a recent low for you?”

Put it all together: Collaboratively create and implement an action plan designed to achieve your vision of well-being for students, staff, and leaders. Here are some resources you could use when creating your plan:

(1) Action Plan Template

(2) Blog posts on well-being

(3) Books:

  1. All Learning is Social and Emotional Learning
  2. The Burnout Epidemic: The Rise of Chronic Stress and How We Can Fix It
  3. The Cost of Control: Why We Crave It, the Anxiety It Gives Us, and the Real Power God Promises
  4. A Cure for the Common Company: A Well-Being Prescription for a Happier, Healthier, and More Resilient Workforce. 
  5. Educator Wellness: A Guide for Sustaining Physical, Mental, Emotional, and Social Well-Being
  6. Feel-Good Productivity: How to Do More of What Matters to You (see end for additional information)
  7. A Minute to Think: Reclaim Creativity, Conquer Busyness, and Do Your Best Work
  8. The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry: How to Stay Emotionally Healthy and Spiritually Alive in the Chaos of the Modern World
  9. What God Has to Say about Our Bodies: How the Gospel Is Good News for Our Physical Selves

(4) ChatGPT prompt: Act as an international Christian school consultant who specializes in helping schools increase the well-being of students, staff, and leaders. Create an improvement plan designed to increase the well-being of students, staff, and leaders. For the plan, do 2 things: First, create an overarching goal and 5-10 action steps to achieve that goal. (For each action step, describe what’s involved and the resources that are needed.) And second, list 10 things to avoid while creating and implementing the plan. Explain each of the 10 things.

(5) Tools: 

(6) Training: 

What about you? What’s important about increasing student, staff, and leader resilient well-being? What would you include in an action plan designed to increase the resilient well-being of students, staff, and leaders? What’s 1 action step you can take?

Get flourishing!

Michael

P.S. The author of Feel-Good Productivity: How to Do More of What Matters to You states that “productivity isn’t about discipline; it’s about doing more of what makes you feel happier, less stressed, more energised” (loc 3104). He proposes the following model: To feel good, we should…

  • Get energized (through people, [em]power[ment], and play).
  • Get unblocked (though seeking clarity, finding courage, and getting started).
  • Sustain well-being (through conserving, recharging, and aligning).

To support our efforts to get energized, get unblocked, and sustain well-being, he proposes 54 intriguing and helpful experiments:

Here are 5 quotations from the book that I found helpful:

(1) “…when we’re in a positive mood, we tend to consider a broader range of actions, be more open to new experiences, and better integrate the information we receive. In other words, feeling good boosts our creativity – and our productivity” (loc 85).

(2) “Individuals who frequently experience positive emotions aren’t just more sociable, optimistic and creative. They also accomplish more. These people bring an infectious energy to their environment, proving more likely to enjoy fulfilling relationships, get higher salaries and truly shine in their professional lives. Those who cultivate positive emotions at work morph into better problem-solvers, planners, creative thinkers and resilient go-getters. They’re less stressed, attract higher evaluations from their superiors and show a higher degree of loyalty to their organisations” (loc 146).

(3) “Psychologists increasingly believe that play holds the key to true productivity, partly because it provides a sense of psychological relief” (loc 245).

(4) “While the motivation method advised us to make ourselves feel like doing the thing, and the discipline method advised us to ignore how we feel and do it anyway, the unblock method encourages us to understand why we’re feeling bad about work in the first place – and tackle the issue head on” (loc 1262).

(5) “According to the WHO definition, burnout is an ‘occupational phenomenon’, characterised by ‘feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion; increased mental distance from one’s job, or feelings of negativism or cynicism related to one’s job; and reduced professional efficacy’. And crucially, it isn’t related to the number of hours you’re working – it’s about how you feel” (loc 2175).