by Chuck Green | CYFS
With the pandemic-fueled anxiety of the past year and a half, workplace stress has become more common among much of the workforce.
Even under less-tumultuous conditions, job stress is a big contributor employee turnover. In early childhood settings, turnover can negatively impact educator relationships with children and families, and compromise children’s learning and development.
In Early Head Start and Head Start programs — which primarily serve minority and marginalized children and families — damage caused by workforce turnover can be even more acute.
Holly Hatton-Bowers, assistant professor of child, youth and family studies, is leading a project to support well-being among EHS/HS educators, with the goal of strengthening employee retention and continuity of care.
She and her interdisciplinary research team will collaborate with early childhood educators to implement a mindfulness-based intervention — Cultivating Healthy Intentional Mindful Educators — for EHS/HS programs.
CHIME is a Nebraska Extension program co-created by Hatton-Bowers, Early Childhood Extension educators and early childhood teachers. The eight-week professional development program provides education and guidance for practicing mindfulness and compassion-based strategies, and helps caregivers engage in reflective practice and use mindfulness with young children.
Research shows engaging in mindfulness and reflective practice benefits health and well-being of both providers and young children, including reduced stress, improved emotion regulation, better sleep quality, increased focus and attention, and enhanced relationships.
“We have promising evidence that teachers who use mindfulness, self-compassion and social-emotional learning strategies tend to be more emotionally regulated,” said Hatton-Bowers, the project’s principal investigator and a CYFS research affiliate. “Teachers who are more emotionally regulated are more responsive in their teaching, which will support children’s engagement and eventual learning success.”
Read more:
https://news.unl.edu/newsrooms/today/article/research-aims-to-strengthen-head-start-early-childhood-educators-well-being/