Workforce Mental Health Emergency Preparedness

Summary

School leaders, staff, and teachers are tasked with keeping children safe from acts of violence, natural hazards and other emergencies while encouraging learning. Disaster plans are often developed without teacher involvement, resulting in limited knowledge of emergency preparedness, undermining buy-in and limited motivation to comply with safety protocols, including disaster drills. The lack of initial consultation and limited decision-making authority can also be sources of stress for teachers. Teachers and staff may experience anxiety about their roles and responsibilities in a crisis. This research project proposes that the key to enhancing emergency preparedness in this population is to incorporate 'psychological preparedness' within a disaster management framework. In other words, to provide the school workforce with awareness of their likely psychological response to threat and coping skills/strategies for management of that response. Importantly, workforce-focused mental health integrated approaches to emergency preparedness are likely to work best if implemented via peer support and shared leadership frameworks. This project involves adaptation and implementation of an integrated workforce mental health intervention into Pre-K-12 school emergency preparedness via shared leadership and peer support. This includes co-creating training curriculum with Pre-K-12 schools, labor organizations, and district officials, implementing and evaluating the impact of the intervention. A matched waitlist control comparison research design will be used with six Pre-K-12 schools. The hypothesized outcomes of the intervention are increases in H1: emergency preparedness climate; emergency preparedness specific H2: shared leadership; H3: peer support and social cohesion; H4: confidence (in emergency preparedness); and H5: psychological preparedness. The project also anticipates H6: increases in overall mental health and well-being, and H7: a reduction in emergency preparedness-specific burnout.

Conditions

• Mental Health
• Burnout, Psychological

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Training

The proposed intervention for the school workforce draws on a mental health integrated disaster preparedness model, emphasizing peer support, developed and used successfully by our team working with communities experiencing multiple disasters. The 3 hour training is comprised of 4 modules - Module 1: Emergency Preparedness Module 2: Psychological Preparedness Module 3: Peer Support Module 4: Shared Leadership and Feedback Session

Sponsors & Collaborators

• National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH/CDC)

  collaborator FED

• Colorado School of Public Health

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Courtney Welton-Mitchell, PhD · Colorado School of Public Health

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

PREVENTION

Masking

NONE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

18 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2022-11-02

Primary Completion

2023-06-01

Completion

2023-06-01

Countries

• United States

Study Locations