The Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education supports teachers’ mental health following students. The ..

The Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education supports teachers’ mental health following students. The Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education announced on the 17th that it will launch a mind doctor project of 50 teachers accompanied by expanding the student mental health support agreement signed in February to teachers to support the improvement of teachers’ mental health.

The project, which is promoted with the National Mental Health Center and the Korean School Mental Health Association, aims to lower psychological barriers to mental health care, which have been unfamiliar and difficult for teachers. It is to provide a list of mental health specialized medical institutions and specialists that are friendly to the school field to increase teachers’ access to mental health medical institutions, and to help them participate in counseling and treatment to lay the foundation for teachers’ mental health support.

Through this agreement, the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education will work together to improve the mental health of teachers and faculty, including △consultation for teacher counseling and medical care △consultation for the protection of teachers and staff △ operation support for prevention and healing programs to restore school education △ support for improving mental health professionalism to protect educational activities.

In line with the implementation of the revision of the Teacher Status Act, on the 19th, it will also conduct capacity-building training and consulting for planners of healing and recovery training to prevent and heal teacher burnout with the Korea School Mental Health Association, an agreement organization. It is an opportunity to analyze teachers’ burnout factors, examine cases and status, and inform various strategies for mental health recovery to increase the professionalism of the person in charge of work, away from the existing one-time experiential training. It will also share case by case so that effective prevention, healing, and recovery support programs can be operated in the field.

In the future, the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education plans to cooperate with the mind doctors of 50 teachers to strengthen the capacity of SEM119 of the educational activity protection emergency support team and promote various mental health promotion projects. Chung Geun-sik, superintendent of the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education, said, “By supporting all members of the school field to be healthy, the key is to establish a school where parents can feel safe and a healthy educational environment where teachers can teach stably,” adding, “We will establish a viable system in time for the enforcement date of the Teacher Status Act to realize protection and support without gaps in overall educational activities.”