Photograph: Gareth Young
Russ Walters, NASUWT National Treasurer, proposed a resolution to EI Congress on Teachers Mental Health, which was supported by the AFT.
He highlighted the ‘overwhelming evidence’ of the mental health and wellbeing crisis affecting teachers in schools in the UK and around the world. For the UK, this included 67% of teachers who said in the NASUWT’s Big Question survey that the job was affecting their mental health and that 3% had self-harmed in the last year.
Russ described this situation as ‘tragic’ and ‘a disaster for our profession’.
He stated that we must be ‘fighting back against bullying and adverse management practices, challenging when needed and taking action to support and protect our members, as we have done, with industrial action’. Furthermore, he said that our call for an international index in the resolution is critical, as is the need to promote World Mental Health Day.
Russ concluded by stating that we must not just tackle the symptoms of mental health issues but that ‘we must attack the very causes of those symptoms’ by putting a stop to adverse management practices and politically motivated policy that cause these issues.
NASUWT International 