Just keep swimming': an interpretative phenomenological analysis of how mainstream secondary school teachers make sense of their roles in supporting students' mental health

Abstract

Children and young people are experiencing higher rates of mental health difficulties coupled with increasingly longer waits for support, particularly since the COVID-19 pandemic. In their positions working directly with children and young people, teachers have been positioned to identify and support student mental health concerns. While teachers have reported feeling willing to support student mental health as part of their roles, they have reported expanding roles, feeling ill-equipped, unconfident, and disinclined to play the part of ‘therapist'. This study used an interpretative phenomenological analysis to explore how the United Kingdom (UK) secondary school teachers make sense of their roles in supporting students' mental health. Eight mainstream secondary school teachers from eight schools in Southeast England were interviewed. Three group experiential themes were identified with nine subthemes: 1) ‘You are helping them to shape their worldview': personal investment in students' development, 2) ‘You're asking us to do too many things under the same umbrella': the emotional strain of balancing competing demands in a broken system, and 3) ‘It just doesn't feel like it's enough': working through helplessness and disempowerment and finding ways to survive. Findings highlight the importance of supporting teachers' wellbeing, who often prioritise students' needs over their own, juggle multiple incompatible priorities, feel restricted in working in valued ways by the educational and wider systems, feel unsupported in their student mental health support and are at risk of compassion fatigue and moral injury. Implications for practice and future research are discussed.