Nurture: Psycho-educational e-mental health intervention on burnout for Grade R educators

Abstract

The well-being of educators is arguably one of the most important factors of effective early childcare education (Connelly, Shaik, & Mosito, 2020; Du Toit, Redelinghuys, & Van der Vaart, 2022; Skae, Brown, & Wilmot, 2020). Grade R educators are vital to children’s future success (Connely et al., 2020; Phillips, Gordeev, & Schreyögg, 2019; Skae et al., 2020). This is because educators not only influence a child’s cognitive development but also the physical, emotional, and social development in the early childhood phase (Skae et al., 2020). With a career in education often seen as demanding and stressful, aspects such as burnout and depression become prevalent (Harding et al., 2019; McInerney, Korpershoek, Wang, & Morin, 2018). This can lead to many negative outcomes for both educators and learners (Hascher, Beltman, & Mansfield, 2021; Harding et al., 2019). From the literature, the development of a psycho-educational e-mental health intervention is encouraged (Harding et al., 2019; Turner & Thielking, 2019; Vo & Allen, 2022). This paper aims to explain how an e-mental health intervention focused on burnout and created from a positive psychology perspective can influence the mental health of Grade R educators. This qualitative research study used the constructivist-interpretivist paradigm with a phenomenology research design. Through the exploration of participants’ responses, a theme of work-related stress and feeling pressure in the school context emerged. This was encapsulated in the overarching theme of burnout. The knowledge generated from this research allowed for creating a psycho-educational e-mental health intervention, NURTURE – a short five-day e-format video series aimed at educator well-being. In this paper, the first video focusing on burnout is explored.