Streaking and self-care planning: the influence of integrating a well-being initiative in one teacher education program

ABSTRACT

Concerns about teacher burnout, compassion fatigue, and retaining early career professionals have prompted teacher education programs to seek out ways to promote mental and emotional health during pre-service teacher training. This two-year, educational design study explored pre-service teachers’ experiences with the implementation of two school-based mental health interventions: the intentional introduction of self-care planning during field experience practicums, and the promotion of ‘streaking’, a health promotion event, to encourage pre-service teachers to implement a daily individual mental health intervention. Data were collected at several different points over a two-year period through surveys and individual interviews. The data analysis indicated that this two-tiered approach holds promise as a health promotion activity, however other intentional and educational actions were needed to ensure that pre-service teachers had the resources and tools required to support their mental and emotional health during their practicum courses. A further finding suggested that the term ‘self-care’ was widely misunderstood by study participants and work is needed to help pre-service teachers understand the importance of self-care during their practicum as a prevention strategy for well-being once they begin their teaching career.

KEYWORDS:

• compassion fatigue
• burnout
• workplace culture
• school health promotion activities
• pre-service teacher education
• streaking
• collective well-being
• emotional labour

Prior to 2020, concern was raised about the mental and emotional health of in-service educational workers, specifically related to perceived increased rates of compassion fatigue and burnout. The Covid-19 pandemic appears to have accelerated and intensified the rates of these two forms of mental health distress, creating an urgent need for intervention. Compassion fatigue, or a caregiver’s secondary response to the trauma of their clients (Figley, 2002) and burnout, the progressive symptoms of physical, emotional, and cognitive fatigue felt by a worker over time (World Health Organization [WHO], 2019) are known occupational hazards for people engaged in caregiving work. Educational workers are no different, however their experiences with these forms of occupational distress have been understudied (Ormiston et al., 2022). Teachers are at heightened risk for compassion fatigue and burnout, given their proximity to children and youth who have experienced trauma on a daily basis (Kendrick, 2022; Ormiston et al., 2022), so teacher training institutions have a responsibility to prepare pre-service teachers to face these challenges to their workplace well-being.

Training and mentorship have been identified as important ways to prevent or mitigate both compassion fatigue and burnout in other caregiving professions such as nursing (Hookmani et al., 2021), clergy (Clarke et al., 2022), and social work (Lalayants, 2021). The need to develop interventions that can teach pre-service teachers about their own risk for compassion fatigue and burnout was identified as a gap for implementation and study (Dubois & Mistretta, 2018; Hydon et al., 2015; Kendrick, 2022). Educational worker training and teacher degree-granting programs in Canada have begun to incorporate mental and emotional health information into pre-service teacher training, however this training is largely focused on the mental and emotional well-being of Kindergarten to Grade 12 students (Ballard et al., 2014; Brown et al., 2019; Cefai & Cooper, 2017) rather than the adults who teach them.

More recently, a stronger connection has been drawn between the health and well-being of teachers with their capacity to create a warm and caring learning environment for children and youth (Lawson et al., 2022). More simply put, healthy adults are better able to demonstrate caring to their students (Nicholson et al., 2020), and students who perceive caring from their teachers make better learners (Jeffrey et al., 2013). The reciprocal nature of collective well-being between students and the adults who care for them suggests that initiatives to embed self-care into pre-service teacher education should be an area of focus.

Self-care is a widely discussed yet often misunderstood concept within the field of education (Marquez, 2023). For the purposes of this study, we adopted the classic definition of self-care provided by Carol Gilligan (1982) that care for the self is a fundamentally relational and ethical concept that is grounded in the avoidance of causing harm of either oneself or others. Ideally, engaging in practices that show care for their self, a pre-service teacher can ensure they create a safe, compassionate, and caring classroom for their students.

Field experience, or the pre-service teacher practicum, is an ideal programmatic location to integrate training and mentorship to help prevent compassion fatigue and burnout in educators. The pre-service teacher practicum is a valued and necessary element of teacher education programs and provides opportunities for the application of theory to practice (Petre et al., 2022).

The purpose of this two-year, educational design study was to explore the influence of integrating a series of self-care initiatives, namely a self-care planning assignment and the #FieldSelfCareStreak, across four mandatory field experience courses. The self-care planning assignment was designed to encourage the pre-service teachers to design a workable self-care plan for implementation during their field experience courses, and the challenge was named the #FieldSelfCareStreak, a voluntary health promotion activity that was designed to encourage the pre-service teachers to take small, daily steps on consecutive days to reach their self-care goals.

The following two research questions framed this study:

1. What is the influence of embedding self-care planning into one field experience program in a large, research university on pre-service teacher well-being?

2. What is the influence of using streaking, a habit-building health promotion intervention, as one way to encourage pre-service teachers to implement their self-care plan?

As the research project developed, a third research question emerged as being important to understanding the pre-service teacher participants’ engagement in the health promotion activity known as the #FieldSelfCareStreak.

• (3) How do pre-service teachers define self-care and does this definition influence their ability to engage in self-care practices?

Data for this study were largely collected during the acute phase of the Covid-19 pandemic (2020–22) which appeared to accelerate occupational mental health distress across the education field. While interest in pre-service teacher well-being existed before the Covid-19 pandemic, the disruption caused by justifiable public health measures increased the importance of focussing on pre-service teacher well-being during practicum (Danyluk et al., 2021).

The impact of COVID-19 on pre-service teacher education in one urban university

The initial waves of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020 had an enormous impact on the educational progress and mental well-being of post-secondary students across Canada and globally. Emergency online instruction, characterized as the rapid shift from in-person to online instruction, and the loss of the highly anticipated life events associated with being a university student, resulted in grief, frustration, and uncertainty for some post-secondary students (Burns et al., 2020; Oliveira et al., 2021; Oral & Karakurt, 2022). For highly experiential programs that included a practicum component, such as teacher education, the constant uncertainty related to Covid-19 health measures, switching between in-person, hybrid, and online instruction, and proximity to illness had a negative influence on pre-service teachers (Saraç et al., 2022; Zhu et al., 2021).

This research study was located in a faculty of education at a large university in Calgary, Canada. In the period leading up to the acute phase of the Covid-19 pandemic, pre-service teachers in this program were instructed through a Bachelor of Education program that assumed in-person instruction in Kindergarten-Grade 12 schools (Burns et al., 2020) and focused on the historical and philosophical basis of education and schooling, planning processes related to teaching and learning, and the requisite subject and disciplinary knowledge to implement the provincially-mandated curricula. Teacher well-being was not addressed in any systemic way and a single lesson in one comprehensive school health course was offered in this program (Russell-Mayhew et al., 2017).

After March 2020, pre-service teachers in this program were not only expected to become experts in online and hybrid instruction, they were also expected to create both a physically and psychologically safe classroom environment in a complex and uncertain time. Similar to other educational programs, little programming had previously been dedicated to understanding the long-term emotional and mental influence of caregiving work by pre-service teachers as they fostered pedagogical and caring relationships with children and youth (Ormiston et al., 2022). In response to pre-service teachers’ displaying and reporting increased levels of stress and distress during their practicum (Danyluk et al., 2021), interventions were needed to address these concerns.

Designing programmatic interventions including and moving beyond self-care

Designing a programmatic intervention for pre-service teachers required addressing the complex factors at individual, organizational, and professional levels that were impacting the pre-service teachers’ increased stress during their practicum. Starting from the individual level could provide pre-service teachers with the greatest amount of autonomy and agency, as the individual determines what they enjoy and can do to feel well. Self-directed, or individual, interventions are those actions that an individual can take in each of the eight dimensions of well-being including actions that attend to one’s physical, social, intellectual, financial, vocational, emotional, and spiritual needs to reach their potential and to feel well (Stoewen, 2017). Incorporating the dual concepts of self-compassion, defined as the noticing and attending to one’s own well-being and suffering, and self-care, caring effectively for oneself (West, 2021; Worline & Dutton, 2017), are critical components of self-directed interventions; however, for workplace problems, self-directed interventions are only one part of a larger framework.

In addition to the individual interventions, caregiving professions have identified three other areas of strategic concern for maintaining well-being, specifically, workplace, organizational, and expert interventions (Dubois & Mistretta, 2018; Figley, 2002; Hydon et al., 2015; Koenig et al., 2018). In the field of education, interventions specific to meeting the teaching and learning needs of children and youth also need to be highlighted to create a compassionate and caring classroom environment.

Workplace interventions are locally developed actions that ensure individuals are assigned a well-managed and fair workload; physical and psychological hazards are identified and addressed through policy and leadership; and managers and employees have processes for innovation and managing disputes (Worline & Dutton, 2017). These interventions require open, direct, and transparent communication between employees, staff, and management about meeting organizational goals while ensuring attention is given to personal and professional well-being.

Organizational interventions are those policies and priorities held by an organization that can either assist or hinder an individual from achieving their well-being goals (Leach et al., 2023). These interventions include training and mentorship programs, vision and mission statements, and leadership and management strategic goals. Organizations that prioritize compassion and caring work environments tend to have more productive and loyal employees who express greater job satisfaction (Poonamallee & Joy, 2022).

Expert or professional interventions are the access to and availability of trained medical and therapeutic professionals to people. They can guide people to prevention strategies or assist them with recovery if they have become ill, injured, or distressed. These interventions can include workplace benefits providers, onsite health providers, and psychologists.

Educational worker interventions are those actions that relate specifically to the processes of teaching and learning (Alberta Teachers Association & Kendrick, 2021). Educators provide emotional labour, and their personal and professional identities tend to merge into a single ‘teacher’ identity, blurring the lines between the professional educator who creates and implements lessons and the personal human who cares and worries for the future of the children and youth in their care (Kendrick, 2018). Developing effective unit and lesson plans that address the diverse needs of children and youth, and then implementing these plans with fidelity and compassion, can have a positive mental and emotional impact on the worker (Schonert-Reichl et al., 2023).

From individual to collective well-being for pre-service and in-service teachers

Despite efforts to increase collaboration between educational workers, teaching and working in classrooms continues to be a largely isolated experience for both pre-service and in-service teachers. Team teaching is more often team-planning, with individual teachers still required to implement lesson plans on their own (Wallace, 2021). While teachers may have educational assistants or other support staff assigned to them, the fast-paced and busy school day contains limited time or resources for extensive collaboration to take place. Often, educational assistants are pulled from a teacher’s classroom to assist elsewhere, take over out-of-classroom administrative duties, or are assigned to an individual student for intensive support (Wiggs et al., 2021), reducing the opportunities for collaborative classroom practice. Finding adequate structured and unstructured time for collaborative effort can be very difficult to establish and maintain across the school year (Weddle, 2020), however, collective effort is important in creating a compassionate work culture (Worline & Dutton, 2017).

Teachers have both a legal and ethical imperative to be well. Legally, professional codes of conduct include directives that teachers create warm and caring learning environments for children and youth. For example, in Alberta, Canada, the Teaching Quality Standard (TQS) (2023) is the document that directs the professional standards that all teachers must strive to meet, or face sanction. It contains a full competency dedicated to fostering effective relationships which outlines several indicators for pedagogical relationships between teachers and students. Specifically, it lists ‘demonstrating empathy and a genuine caring for others’ (Alberta Education, 2023, p. 4). Emotional and mental distress caused by burnout or compassion fatigue is negatively associated with a teacher’s ability to develop an effective relationship with their students (Koenig et al., 2018; Simon et al., 2022) and should be understood as a part of pre-service education and training.

Simon et al. (2022) found that untreated or unrecognized compassion fatigue results in symptoms such as a changed worldview (to negative) and a lack of interest in the needs of a client or student. These symptoms hindered the teacher’s ability or willingness to notice the suffering of their students. Not seeing a student’s suffering, whether it be because the student is experiencing exam anxiety or grieving the loss of a parent or a pet, interferes with the teacher’s ethical responsibility to care for the needs of their students.

Teacher preparation programs therefore hold an ethical responsibility to design well-being interventions into their coursework to ensure that pre-service teachers have an understanding of the influence of providing crisis and trauma work in their future classrooms (Koenig et al., 2018). Attending to well-being needs to move past instructing pre-service teachers to take care of themselves to providing the organizational-level policies, practices, time, and mentorship to encourage the daily implementation of these self-directed interventions.

Streaking as a habit builder for daily well-being

Individuals who attempt to make large lifestyle or workplace improvements can become frustrated and give up, so developing a sustainable self-care program requires leadership and a collective effort (Worline & Dutton, 2017). Taking a whole school approach rather than simply implementing one time well-being initiatives has a stronger long-term impact on the well-being of both adults and children (Neely et al., 2020; Rowe & Stewart, 2011; Russell-Mayhew et al., 2017).

Self-determination theory researchers suggest that healthy habits are formed through setting achievable goals (Gagné & Deci, 2005), perceived collective support (Kwasnicka et al., 2016), and focused, everyday effort (Hawlader et al., 2022). Additionally, it posits that individual goals that align with collective effort or social identity are more likely to be achieved (Thomas et al., 2017). ‘Streaking’, or attempting to achieve a small goal every day for as many days as possible, has the potential to assist individuals to build a daily habit to reach their well-being goals.

To assist pre-service teachers with building daily self-care habits, a health promotion challenge – the #FieldSelfCareStreak – along with information about the signs and symptoms of compassion fatigue and burnout was integrated into the field experience. The purpose of integrating the #FieldSelfCareStreak was to encourage community and habit building with the students enrolled in their practicum courses and the integration of resources and support information was intended to provide the knowledge and context for the streak.

The design of this health promotion activity was two-fold: firstly, practicum students were asked to develop a self-care plan that included potential supports or resources they could access through the university, their benefits plans, and partner schools related to individual, school, system, and educational worker interventions. Designing self-care plans was intentionally integrated in the Field Experience II course outline where students were asked to develop and share their self-care plans with peers and field instructors through the learning platform D2L as group discussions or synchronous lectures. Field Experience II was selected because during this practicum course the pre-service teachers experienced their first real, full-time teaching assignment over a four-week period.

Secondly, the students were invited to develop one achievable goal to integrate into their daily schedule as 15–20 minutes of self-care while engaged in practicum. Pre-service teachers were challenged to opt into the #FieldSelfCareStreak and attempt to reach this goal on as many consecutive days as possible. For those who were interested, they could post their success on Twitter, Instagram, or any preferred social media platform. The intent was to use the hashtag #FieldSelfCareStreak to create a positive and supportive online community for pre-service teachers and university faculty.

To understand the influence of embedding the self-care plan assignment and streak challenge into field experience, an educational design study was created to explore the influence of this health promotion activity.

Research methodology

Research context

The study context was a large Bachelor of Education program in Western Canada that has approximately 1,000 students enrolled in either two-year or four-year programs. Regardless of which program is taken, pre-service teachers have two years dedicated to their education courses, and within these two years, they are enrolled in four field experience (practicum) classes. The four field experience courses are two- weeks (observation), four weeks (light teaching load), six weeks (moderate teaching load) and eight weeks (intense teaching load). The two-week (Field Experience 1) and six-week (Field Experience 3) courses run in the fall term and the four-week (Field Experience 2) and eight-week (Field Experience 4) practicums run in the spring term.

A total of 30–35 field instructors monitor and assess the progress of the pre-service teachers, and between 600 and 800 in-service teachers provide mentorship each term within over 500 schools across several Canadian provinces. The Field Experience program is overseen by two Field Experience Directors who collaborate to support the Field Experience program objectives and provide mentorship to the field experience instructors. Pre-service teachers work towards understanding and enacting the competencies in the Alberta Teaching Quality Standard as they make connections between theory and practice (Alberta Education, 2023).

Using educational design research methodology (Creswell, 2015; McKenney & Reeves, 2012), a combination of quantitative and qualitative data collection methods were used to understand the influence of self-care planning integration and streaking from the perspective of pre-service teachers, and then to design more responsive programming for subsequent field experience courses based on the data analysis. Ethics approval was granted by the University of Calgary institutional ethics board to proceed with the study in 2021. Data were collected at the conclusion of the practicum term (spring 2021 and winter 2022) and, with the analysis of the data, used to inform the design of the health promotion activities.

Survey design and data collection

Survey data with quantitative and qualitative measures were developed using the Survey Alchemer platform that included Likert style questions adapted to suit pre-service teacher experiences from the prompts from Gallop’s Q12 Employee Engagement Survey (Gallup, 2023) and qualitative questions specific to the course assignment on self-care and the streak initiative (see Appendix A). Participants were recruited one week before the conclusion of the practicum course via an emailed invitation containing a link to the online survey from the Field Experience office, and were given a verbal reminder to check the emails by their field instructor during their final seminar.

Each survey collection point was cross-sectional, representing different populations at different times. The first survey was administered in April 2022 and was open for three weeks, which corresponded to the end of Field Experiences 2 and 4. Likert-style questions on an agreement scale were developed to understand if students felt successful during their placements, felt supported or mentored during their practicum, felt recognized for their successes, valued their workplace well-being, received sufficient feedback, and whether or not they improved their teaching practice.

A second quantitative survey consisting of 16 questions was administered in December 2022, at the end of Field Experiences 1 and 3, containing the same questions and using the same recruitment method. This survey was also open for three weeks. Data analysis for the surveys used a combination of descriptive statistics that focused on simple percentages of responses (Trochim, 2006) and thematic analysis to summarize the open-ended responses.

Demographics. Survey 1

Of a potential population of 800 students, we received 77 total responses to the first survey, representing a 10% response rate. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the data to provide some insight into the larger data set (Holcomb, 1998), however, these statistics cannot be generalized to the wider population due to the small sample size. Of the 77 responses, 36 respondents were from Field Experience 2 and 38 selected Field Experience 4. Fifty respondents selected residing in an urban area while 24 selected residing in a rural or remote location. Sixty-four respondents selected female gender, seven selected male, and three preferred not to select a gender. The respondents were largely of European origins (41), followed by North American origins (20), Asian (8), African (3), Latin, Central, or South American (2), and North American Indigenous (1). The majority of respondents were aged 18–25 (35 responses), with 18 respondents selecting 26–33, 11 selecting 34–41, and 10 selecting ages 42–49. Because of the small sample size, the responses were analyzed in aggregate, as no comparative analysis could be completed based on demographics.

Demographics. Survey 2

Of a potential population of 800, we received a total of 115 responses, representing a 14% response rate. Because of the small sample size, descriptive statistics were used, and no generalizations can be made from the survey sample to the population. Seventy-one respondents indicated that they had just finished Field Experience 2 and 39 respondents indicated that they had completed Field Experience 4. Of the respondents, 92 indicated they resided in an urban area and 18 selected a rural or remote location. Ninety-four respondents indicated their gender as female, 12 selected male, 3 preferred not to answer, and 1 selected Not listed. Under ethnic origins, 49 selected European origins, 26 selected North American, 18 selected Asian, five preferred not to answer, four selected North American Indigenous, three selected Mixed, two selected African, one selected Latin, Central, or South American, and one selected Middle Eastern. For age, 60 respondents selected 18–25, 28 selected 26–33, nine selected 34–41, two selected 42–49, two selected 50–57 and two preferred not to disclose. Because of the small sample size, the responses were analyzed in aggregate, as no comparative analysis could be completed based on demographics.

Qualitative data collection and interviews

Participants

Convenience sampling was used to recruit interview participants. At the conclusion of the first survey, survey participants were provided the opportunity to volunteer to participate in an individual interview. A recruitment email to participate in the semi-structured interview was sent out by the research assistant to all the participants who indicated a willingness to participate in an interview. These participants had recently completed the Field Experience 2 and Field Experience 4 courses. Online interviews were preferred as the participants were no longer located on campus, having graduated, or returned to their homes for the spring and summer break. Interview participants received an incentive in the form of a $25 gift card. Interviews were completed online via Zoom with a total of 10 participants between April and August, 2022. Semi-structured interviews were selected to promote a conversational format, although the research assistant used a standardized outline of questions (see Appendix A) and also inquired about participant responses for a more thorough response (Harrell & Bradley, 2009). The interviews were all conducted by the same research assistant to ensure consistency between interviews. Consent was obtained at the beginning of the interview, and they ranged from 10 to 35 minutes, with a mean of approximately 20 minutes. The participants chose their own pseudonym to maintain confidentiality.

Data analysis

Before data analysis, the quantitative data were cleaned, removing any responses that were incomplete, completed too quickly, or were identified as insufficient by the Survey Alchemer platform. Quantitative data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, providing some insight into the experiences of the participants. The qualitative responses in the surveys were analyzed using constant comparison thematic analysis (Creswell, 2015), first individually by the two researchers, and then the resultant codes were compared and contextualized with the research literature.

The interviews were transcribed using the automated Trint (trint.com) software and the resultant transcripts were then checked for consistency by the research assistant who performed the interviews. The two researchers separately created code books and themes which were stored using NVivo. The resultant codes were consolidated by the two researchers into themes. The themes from the survey and interview data were then compared and reduced into common findings for this study.

Analysis and findings

This educational design research had two distinct datasets that were analyzed and condensed into several inter-related themes. The analysis provided several key insights into the influence of integrating self-care planning and the implementation of streaking as a health promotion activity in a pre-service teacher education program.

Overall, the data collected from both surveys suggested that the majority of the respondents felt supported, acknowledged, and improved their teaching practice over their most recent practicum (see Tables 1, 2, & 3). Of importance, in both groups, the statement ‘I value my workplace well-being’ had a very high rate of agreement, with 68 respondents (88%) in Survey 1 and 96 respondents (89%) agreeing with the statement.

Table 1. Survey 1 responses (n = 77 responses).

Value (# of responses)	Strongly disagree	Disagree	Neutral	Agree	Strongly agree
I knew what was expected of me during field experience.	1 (1%)	8 (10%)	2 (2%)	37 (48%)	24 (31%)
I had the materials and resources I needed to be successful.	3 (3%)	9 (12%)	12 (15%)	34 (44%)	14 (18%)
Every day, I had the opportunity to do my best teaching.	2 (2%)	9 (12%)	6 (8%)	33 (43%)	22 (29%)
In the final days, I received praise or recognition for my teaching.	1 (1%)	4 (5%)	2 (2%)	16 (21%)	49 (64%)
I value my workplace well-being.	1 (1%)	2 (2%)	4 (5%)	19 (25%)	46 (60%)
I had a trusted peer or colleague at work.	3 (3%)	5 (6%)	4 (5%)	16 (21%)	44 (57%)
I had sufficient feedback to be successful.	1 (1%)	5 (6%)	3 (3%)	23 (30%)	40 (52%)
I felt my teaching practice improved over practicum.	0 (0%)	1 (1%)	2 (2%)	17 (22%)	52 (68%)

Table 2. Survey 2 responses (n = 115 responses).

Value (# of responses)	Strongly disagree	Disagree	Neutral	Agree	Strongly agree	Not applicable (Field 1)
I knew what was expected of me during field experience.	3 (3%)	4 (3%)	3 (3%)	36 (31%)	56 (49%)
I had the materials and resources I needed to be successful.	3 (3%)	7 (6%)	9 (6%)	32 (29%)	51 (44%)
Every day, I had the opportunity to do my best teaching.	6 (5%)	4 (3%)	24 (29%)	21 (18%)	23 (20%)	23 (20%)
In the final days, I received praise or recognition for my teaching.	3 (3%)	8 (7%)	12 (10%)	21 (18%)	33 (29%)	24 (29%)
I value my workplace well-being.	1 (1%)	2 (2%)	1 (1%)	12 (10%)	84 (73%)
I had sufficient feedback to be successful.	1 (1%)	6 (5%)	16 (14%)	25 (22%)	28 (24%)	23 (20%)
I felt my teaching practice improved over practicum.	1 (1%)	3 (3%)	7 (6%)	35 (30%)	43 (37%)	10 (9%)

Table 3. Aggregate responses (n = 192).

Value (# of responses)	Strongly disagree	Disagree	Neutral	Agree	Strongly agree
I knew what was expected of me during field experience.	4 (2%)	11 (6%)	5 (3%)	73 (38%)	80 (42%)
I had the materials and resources I needed to be successful.	6 (3%)	16 (8%)	19 (10%)	66 (34%)	65 (34%)
Every day, I had the opportunity to do my best teaching.	8 (4%)	13 (&%)	30 (16%)	54 (28%)	45 (23%)
In the final days, I received praise or recognition for my teaching.	4 (2%)	12 (6%)	14 (7%)	37 (19%)	82 (43%)
I value my workplace well-being.	2 (1%)	8 (4%)	5 (3%)	31 (16%)	120 (63%)
I had sufficient feedback to be successful.	2 (1%)	11 (6%)	19 (10%)	48 (25%)	68 (35%)
I felt my teaching practice improved over practicum.	1 (.5%)	4 (2%)	9 (5%)	52 (27%)	95 (49%)

In response to the open-ended question, ‘Who supported you during your most recent practicum?’, the most cited supports were practicum peers, field instructor, partner teacher, and own students, with partner teacher and field instructor having the most influence (see Table 4). Identifying and accessing social support (Cohen & Syme, 1985) during the practicum experience appears to be an important form of school-based intervention.

Table 4. Surveys 1 and 2 responses.

Value (# of responses)	Survey 1 (n= 77)	Survey 2 (n= 115)	Combined (n=192)
My practicum peers	32 (42%)	71 (61%)	103 (54%)
My field instructor	23 (30%)	62 (54%)	85 (44%)
My partner teacher	50 (65%)	56 (29%)	106 (55%)
My own students	31 (40%)	34 (30%)	65 (34%)
Personal reflection (D2L posts)	12 (16%)	28 (23%)	40 (21%)
Reading related to teacher well-being	6 (8%)	22 (19%)	28 (14.5%)
HEARTcare planning website	2 (3%)	9 (8%)	11 (6%)
Self-care planning assignment	6 (8%)	8 (7%)	14 (7%)
Podcasts related to teacher well-being	11 (14%)	7 (6%)	18 (9%)
#FieldSelfCareStreak	7 (9%)	7 (6%)	14 (7%)
University campus mental health supports	2 (3%)	2 (1%)	4 (2%)
None of these	6 (8%)	7 (6%)	14 (7%)

For interventions used to deal with stress and distress, the respondents were given an open-ended text response option, and the responses were coded according to the type of interventions used including individual, organizational (university), school (placement site), professional, and educational worker (see Table 5).

Table 5. Open-ended responses to ‘The self-care strategy I used during my field experience program was … ’.

Value (# of responses)	Survey 1 (Total 77)	Survey 2 (Total 115)	Combined (192)
Individual interventions	54 (70%)	76 (66%)	130 (68%)
School/workplace interventions	10 (13%)	8 (7%)	18 (9%)
Professional interventions	4 (5%)	0 (0%)	4 (2%)
System/organizational interventions	0 (0%)	1 (1%)	1 (.5%)
None	4 (5%)	10 (9%)	14 (7%)

The themes that emerged from the data coding suggested that the pre-service teachers depended heavily on individual interventions that they largely completed in their own time, such as going to the gym, getting enough sleep, spending time with friends or family, or trying to eat well. The only school-based interventions that were mentioned were creating work/home boundaries or finishing lesson planning at school, and the connection between social and professional supports at school, while selected as valuable, was not perceived as a form of self-care. Very few used other interventions, suggesting that as a part of program design, additional instruction was required to assist pre-service teachers with identifying and using other forms of intervention. Of concern, 14 respondents did not identify any self-care strategies that they could use during their practicum. Given that having no interventions is a risk factor for burnout or compassion fatigue, this response is problematic.

Lastly, in terms of the effectiveness of the streaking initiative, the surveys indicated a lukewarm reception to the #FieldSelfCareStreak health promotion initiative, as the majority of respondents did not participate (see Table 6).

Table 6. Did you participate in the #FieldSelfCareStreak?

Value (# of responses)	Survey 1 (Total 77)	Survey 2 (Total 115)	Combined (192)
Yes	2	8	10
No	57	61	118
A little bit	11	28	39

The open-ended responses from the respondents who did not participate strongly indicated that the respondents did not know about the initiative, were strongly opposed to social media and associated the initiative only with social media, or could not make time for self-care. For respondents who indicated that they participated ‘a little bit’, the reasons for their reluctance were related to the perception that the streak was primarily a social media activity, indicating that other ways to measure or promote the streak initiative are needed.

The following open-ended responses were typical of the respondents who selected ‘no’:

My personal self-care is to stay off of social media both during field and outside of it. It is also an extra thing to add to my day, and I find more effective self-care takes away extra responsibilities. I also prefer not to post personal things (even self-care) to social media. (Respondent 4, Survey 1)

I was not aware of this. We did have to make a self-care plan, but it was really just saying what you normally do for self-care which is very repetitive (I only had so much time each day and did the exact same things every day and only did different things on the weekends). (Respondent 30, Survey 1)

Although it was introduced to my class, I did not look into it on my own time. I thought I would not need it. (Respondent 97, Survey 2)

The respondents who did participate in the streak noticed the benefits of prioritizing self-care and discussed how important mentorship at the school placement site was:

I gained the ability and knowledge to know it’s okay to prioritize myself especially when days are busy of practicum and school. I am usually a people pleaser but having the reminder that it’s okay to say no to things when I’m busy helped me (Respondent 76, Survey 2)

The survey data suggested that while the respondents valued their workplace well-being and were interested in self-care, many of them were reluctant to participate in the #FieldSelfCareStreak which they perceived as a singular social media event rather than an integrated part of their overall plan to prevent burnout and compassion fatigue. This health promotion activity has the potential to be an effective organizational intervention to implement self-care planning, but the cynicism and reluctance of pre-service teachers to engage needs to be addressed for it to be an effective strategy in further iterations. Further, the qualitative responses suggested that the participants were actively incorporating daily self-care but did not necessarily connect the streaking initiative to their well-being goals.

Findings from qualitative interviews

While the survey data provided a bigger picture, the 10 participants in the semi-structured interview provided nuanced and rich explanations about their experiences with practicum and self-care. The themes that emerged from the data analysis were that the participants had inconsistent definitions of self-care; they were engaged in ‘heartwork’ (Kendrick, 2018) that supported their well-being; and professional relationships helped to sustain them through difficult times. Although none of the interview participants were active in the streak challenge, each one of them described their effort to incorporate daily self-care into their practicum.

Inconsistent definitions of self-care

In response to the interview question, ‘What is self-care?’, each of the 10 participants provided a different definition (see Table 7).

Table 7. Definition of self-care.

Interview participant	Definition
Aura Li	It’s something that I think is super important that you need to take maybe like half an hour to an hour a day just for yourself to decompress and not have to worry about any other stresses around you. It’s just like your alone time and like understanding what’s going on and like. If you, like I said, “if you pray, meditate, go for a walk, listen to music” It’s something to decompress yourself and not have to worry about all the other stresses for just that little bit of time.
George	So self-care - I kind of have like two definitions to it. The first one is finding the right balance between your dedication to your job and stuff outside; so your home life. Would be my first definition. The second one would be the things that you do to prevent burnout from your job.
Katharina	I define self-care as anything that goes beyond maintenance. So, maintenance is things like brushing your teeth, making sure, stretching in the morning, eating proper, drinking proper, anything that you need to do to survive in a healthy way. And then self-care is anything that you take a step above that to make sure that you’re thriving in those situations.
Kaye	I think, like, I think me my definitions really changed to more include, like, boundaries rather than things - one thing I noticed that a lot of people were adding [to their D2L discussion posts], you know, “I’m going to go to the gym, I’m going to meal plan, I’m going to whatever”. And to be honest, that was where I started. And I was like, “Yeah, I’m going to meal plan and stuff.” But then it was more like “no what are my boundaries?” Okay, so like - I am like when I come home from school, my self-care was spending time with my kids and my husband because like mine are well, they’re now five and six. They were four and six serving my practicum and I mean they’re young enough. They go to bed by 7:30. I have lots of time to do some planning and prep in front of a good TV show that I enjoy. That’s fine. But like taking a bit of a time to, you know, set the boundaries and say, “Nope. this is my family time, I’m not going to sit and mark, I’m not going to cut a bunch of stuff out right now.” Like that’s the boundaries that, you know, when I got home at like 4:30 till 7:30, that’s family time. So, I think it just had to do with boundaries. Period.
Laura	I think self-care is like taking care of yourself, your emotional state, your health, well-being. Self-care for me is like having a bubble bath when I need a bubble bath or going for a run or taking time for me, or spending time with family and friends doing things that fill me up.
Ming	Yeah, having that social support and being able to talk with people, talk with peers, but also engaging in activities that you enjoy and setting that time you set on Sundays. You have support, setting that time aside just to focus on you and your stuff.
Nirmala	Self-care. First thing, I am an Asian person (laughs). Moms don’t consider self-care - you’re looking at me, you know how self-care I am (laughs). I don’t find the time for self-care, but then if I have to do a self-care plan, then, I like to swim, so swimming, mentally and physically, it would help a lot. Then taking time for myself and doing what I like to do would be a great plan. Like listening to music. Going for a nice walk, swimming, spending time with family and, wow, I missed that a lot during my Field.
Richelle	I would define self-care as doing what you need to relieve stress and to make you feel better. It’s almost like recharging your battery or like filling up your cup and it doesn’t have to be anything extravagant, anything just simple that makes you feel better.
Ruby	So, self-care is just making sure that my own needs are met first. And so, for me, that means getting enough sleep, that’s super important.
Sarge	I think self-care is when you prioritize your own mental and physical well-being in terms of a consistent routine that you are able to apply within your everyday life, particularly in times of heightened stress.
Simone	I define self-care as like, I mean, is this like caring for yourself, doing things that you - it’s just focus solely selfish, completely selfish towards yourself. Just do what you want to do.

As suggested by Rahbari (2023), a neoliberal definition of self-care largely framed their definitions, with the focus of the respondents being on physical well-being and appearance, rather than attuning to all of the seven dimensions of well-being. Specifically, the participants understood self-care primarily as addressing their physical health rather than developing a relationship with oneself that attunes to identifying and meeting one’s own mental, emotional, intellectual, social, environmental, and physical needs (Hamington, 2017).

Engaged in ‘heartwork’

A critical compassion satisfaction builder for in-service teachers is having the capacity to do their ‘heartwork’ (Alberta Teachers Association & Kendrick, 2021). Heartwork is the feeling that teaching is a calling or a vocation, and generally relates to the person’s desire to have a positive impact on children and youth through their work in education. The interview participants described how their positive relationships with the children in their practicum placements helped them to persevere,

Like when other people were feeling really, really tired at the end of the day, I was ready to go for a walk with my kids and ready to let go do something at the end of the day, because I just felt so energized being in that room and being with those kids and being with my partner teacher and the school and everything. I, honestly, besides figuring out at the beginning where I was going to be and who I needed to contact and all that stuff, it [practicum] was really not a stressful experience. (Kaye)

The connection between the pre-service teachers’ self-care and their impact on the well-being of children was not made by the interview participants. Because their understanding of the concept of self-care was limited and diverse, they did not appear to connect the psychological hazards of burnout or compassion fatigue with their ability to be a positive influence on their students.

Professional relationships as sustainers

Lastly, the interview data demonstrated the importance of interpersonal relationships and social support networks to the participants’ well-being. They highlighted that their relationships with their campus field instructor, partner teacher, students, and, to a lesser extent, their peers had a strong impact on their workplace well-being. The mentorship from the field instructor and partner teacher assisted the participants through difficult times, whether from personal experiences or teaching a difficult lesson.

Because they feel like all the instructors were very supportive. Like I shared with you in January, my husband lost his best friend, he took his own life, and I never took extensions on any assignments to this full degree. And in January, I took an extension in every single class because I couldn’t keep up. I feel like the support through the instructors was always there. They were always advocating that they knew how much work it was. (Laura)

I had a great partner teacher, and I think that also helps. Like when you connect with your partner teacher and you have that great open communication, that also is very helpful. (Aura Li)

The relationships with Kindergarten-Grade 12 students also provided the interview participants with gratifying experiences as they realized the positive impact their planning and teaching were having on children and youth.

It would be like my last day, we gathered in the corner, and they made a little card for me and a bunch of little crafts for me. And then they went around in a circle saying different things they enjoyed about me being there and what they were going to miss. And it just kind of reassured the connections that we had built over those four weeks. (Richelle)

The interview data provided a context to the survey responses as the participants identified the aspects of their work that sustained them and what gaps remained in developing their ability and willingness to integrate self-care strategies into their daily work.

Discussion

Professional learning and disrupting the narrative about self-care

The pre-service teachers’ inconsistent definitions of self-care and the minimal participation in the streaking initiative but the consistently high value they placed on their own workplace well-being suggested a need for instructional clarity regarding the intentions of the self-care planning and streaking initiatives within the overall Field Experience program as a key intervention to promote positive mental health.

The intentional focus on self-care planning in the course outline objectives and the promotion of the #FieldSelfCareStreak at an organizational level did not translate into active participation by students in the challenge. In future iterations of these initiatives, incorporating direct professional development or information on compassion fatigue and burnout and instruction that challenges the commercialized and superficial notions of self-care (Rahbari, 2023) might positively influence participation by the pre-service teachers.

Given the stated importance of the partner teacher and field instructor to the pre-service teachers’ practicum experience (Kolb, 1984), an area of further study would be to understand the influence of providing additional professional learning about workplace well-being for the support faculty and staff on pre-service teacher well-being. The two survey participants who fully participated in the #FieldSelfCareStreak highlighted the importance of their partner teacher support with implementing their daily self-care goals. One participant noted that they went on daily walks with their partner teacher, which made meeting their goals much easier and more attainable.

The self-care plan assignment and #FieldSelfCareStreak initiatives require an organizational and systematic approach from the program leadership to ensure that the messaging is transparent and consistent across all field experience courses. The survey and interview data also suggested that the course designers should ensure that a research-based definition of self-care be used across all the field experience course sections and that the expectations for the self-care plan and streak be better communicated to the field instructors. For participants who indicated that they participated ‘a little bit’ in the #FieldSelfCareStreak, they did so because of the encouragement they had from their field instructors and partner teachers. Creating professional development activities that can be collectively attended by pre-service teachers, partner teachers, and field instructors together might deepen their understanding of self-care and teacher well-being and improve the integration of these initiatives.

Self-care on the path to collective well-being

The qualitative interviews also highlighted the need for pre-service and in-service teachers to connect teacher well-being and the influence it has on the children and youth in their classroom. As explained by Berthoud and Jenkins (2021, para. 3), ‘supporting teachers’ wellbeing is the first step towards ensuring they can effectively respond to the diverse psychosocial and learning needs of children’. The participants suggested that the narrative surrounding self-care has been one of superficial attention to physical health with minimal opportunities to engage with the other seven dimensions of well-being. In order to achieve a safe and caring classroom environment, the message needs to become ‘self-care is not an indulgence. It is an essential component of prevention of exhaustion and/or professional burnout’ (Palmer, 2019, p. 11).

The data indicated that pre-service teachers were incorporating many individual self-care strategies such as planning healthy lunches, going for walks during the school day, mindfulness breathing techniques, and setting more boundaries to sustain themselves during their practicums. While these individual strategies are an essential component towards pre-service teacher well-being, the survey and interview participants did not connect supporting their own well-being as being a necessary component of creating a safe and caring classroom for their own students.

As teacher well-being becomes a more important component of creating a healthy school culture, a focus on collective well-being could be at the core of educational work. Collective well-being ‘is dependent on individual well-being, but his association is bi-directional, and the properties of the group also influence the individual’” (Roy et al., 2018, p. 1801). The survey and interview participants highlighted the positive impact of having good relationships with students which simultaneously built their professional resilience and perseverance during their practicums. A clear connection between the positive impact of personal well-being on the pre-service teacher’s success in their classroom should be a focus of discussion as self-care plans and streaking are integrated into field experience.

Leadership and mentorship implications

While issues of teacher well-being were emerging as a problem before the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, the uncertainty caused by events of 2020–23 necessitated prioritizing both teacher and student well-being. While reacting to chaos of the continued pivots and uncertainty, school and university leadership had to act quickly, but with empathy and compassion through embedding self-care and teacher well-being in the field experience program. As noted by Ming in her interview, ‘So it’s like it has to come from the higher ups and the leaders and they have to showcase that it’s important for us to feel that [self-care] is important. But I also really appreciate that this is being done and your work and all of this’.

An interesting side effect of this initiative not studied in this research project was the positive influence of the Twitter social media community on the university faculty. While the social media hashtag (#FieldSelfCareStreak) was not attractive to the pre-service teacher participants, who saw it as a disincentive to participate, it was an effective way to build community amongst faculty members who felt disconnected from each other during the Covid-19 pandemic. The online connection had the surprising effect of creating a welcoming space for faculty to share their personal self-care triumphs and challenges with each other. This other effect is an area for further study.

Limitations

This research study has several limitations. Firstly, a limitation to this educational design study was the small sample of the pre-service teacher population for the surveys. While some generalizations can be made related to the samples, larger generalizations about the population cannot be made. Survey fatigue has been identified as a problem in the post-Covid period (de Koning et al., 2021) which may have impacted the willingness of the target population to complete the survey. Running the health promotion activity with the accompanying survey again with a larger sample would add greater validity to this study. Secondly, the interview data iare robust and provide some clear insights into the experiences of the participants with self-care in field experience, however, as with qualitative data, larger generalizations should not be made beyond the constraints of the study itself (Creswell, 2015).

Another limitation of this study is that the primary voice is that of the student participants. The survey and interview participants made some revelations about their field instructors, partner teachers, and the program itself, however, the perspectives of these mentioned groups was not investigated in this study. A follow-up study with the people who largely implemented the self-care plan assignment and #FieldSelfCareStreak initiative would fill in some of the missing information about their understanding of self-care in pre-service teacher education.

Conclusion

The problems of compassion fatigue and burnout are extensive in the education field and require individual, organizational, professional, and educational worker interventions to support both in-service and pre-service teachers. Incorporating self-care planning and methods in pre-service teacher education is one way towards developing a healthier educational workforce.

Integrating self-care into the practicum will continue to be an important prevention strategy for compassion fatigue and burnout, however, alongside the event-style health promotion activities, such as the #FieldSelfCareStreak, pre-service teachers need a common definition of self-care and an understanding of the purpose for creating health workplace habits. Teacher preparation programs can ensure that pre-service teachers have multiple avenues to investigate the support and resources necessary so that they can care for their physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, environmental, social, intellectual, and financial well-being. The concept of a habit-building streak holds promise as a health promotion activity. However, the purpose needs further clarification and the activity should be incorporated into the overall structure of the entire education degree program, rather than only in field experience. Doing so may enable pre-service teachers to connect the ethical and legal imperative of creating a safe, warm, and caring learning environment for K-12 students to caring for their own well-being.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada [RMS21-74712479].

Appendix A.

Interview Questions

Interview Script

Thank you for agreeing to participate in this research study. The University of Calgary Conjoint Faculties Research Ethics Board (REB#22-0364) has approved this research study. Before we get started, please sign and return this consent form. The interview will be audio-recorded using the Zoom features for transcription through the Trint service. Do you consent to being audio-recorded? If you feel any emotional discomfort, please let me know as I have a list of resources and supports that can assist you with feeling better. As well, you can decline to answer any question or end the interview at any time if you no longer wish to proceed. I will send a copy of the transcript to you once it is complete, and you can withdraw your data up until November 1, 2022 by sending me an email request. Your participation in this study is highly valuable both for the improvement of the field experience program and to understand if and how self-care planning and implementation has impacted pre-service teachers.

Interview Questions

1. Describe your most recent practicum experience. Please avoid naming partner teachers, instructors, schools, and school districts in your response, focusing on your own experiences only.

2. What was your most memorable moment during field experience? What made this moment stand out for you?

3. What caused stress for you during your most recent practicum?

4. What actions did you take to relieve your stress during your practicum?

5. How do you define “self-care”?

6. Did you participate in the #fieldselfcarestreak? Why or why not?

7. If you did participate, what motivated you to become involved?

8. If you did not participate, what types of incentives would have helped you decide to join in?

9. If you could have had any specific resources or supports to help you during times of stress, what would these supports (people) or resources (materials) look like?

10. Do you have any other comments or insights about your self-care during field experience that you would like to share?