In 2020, Mark Butler, a fantastic educator from Ireland, became principal of Al Durrah International School in Sharjah, UAE. At this time, a sequence of events occurred that led the school to decide that a strong wellbeing program was needed. Mark explains:

Society and family pressures had students fixated on grades. It is quite common for students to have this obsession with receiving 90 per cent average grades because the students have a significant chance of receiving scholarships.

So, the focus is on getting As and A+s and it got to the point where they'd do anything to get those grades, which at the time included plagiarism issues.

He could see the stressful impact this was having on students and staff. This was the tipping point that led Mark to realise things needed to change. Mark kindly shares:

It was around this time, that I came across Ash's LinkedIn and I noticed the content he was sharing on gratitude, self-reflection, resilience and other similar positive habits. So, we committed to using some of his resources.

Historically, it was believed wellbeing wasn't everyone's responsibility — it was just one person's — so Mark had to change this perception and teach the staff that it's actually everyone's job. Mark shares:

Staff had a very poor understanding of wellbeing; they've never really been involved in any type of dialogue around wellbeing. There was only one person in the school who had a good understanding and he was trying to drive it on his own. Therefore, I had to start off by breaking it down, like ‘What is wellbeing?’ I started with trainings. I trained the kindergarten team, primary team and secondary teams. All staff were included.

Being committed is one of the most important steps to embedding a strong positive education program across your school – and this relies on everyone in the whole school being involved.

The staff’s attitude to wellbeing — that it was the responsibility of the lone wellbeing leader — wasn’t their fault. They simply weren't aware of the role they could play in the wellbeing of students, as well as in supporting each other. This is when Mark made the decision that he needed to educate his staff in the importance of wellbeing and show them how to integrate wellbeing into the classroom and across the school.

Being committed is one of the most important steps to embedding a strong positive education program across your school — and this relies on everyone in the whole school being involved.

That's what commitment is about.

A whole-school approach

First and foremost, school leaders and staff need to be committed to embedding wellbeing across the whole school. This may seem obvious, but it's often overlooked. When you dive a little deeper, the commitment is only verbal, with very little action being taken to ensure a strong program is in place. On other occasions, schools start out like a bull at a gate — train staff, implement some practices — and then a few months later it's all come to a halt.

So, the first question you have to ask to ensure this doesn't happen to you is ‘What is it that everyone thinks they are committing to?’

I was speaking to a brilliant educator from Melbourne recently who was super excited about commencing her new position as wellbeing leader. In fact, when I reached out to ask her a question in regards to this book, she told me she had resigned from the role because the school's view on wellbeing didn't align with hers. In her words:

My role ended up being behaviour management and student welfare, which is definitely not a preventative model. My idea was more about wellbeing in general, such as running resilience and wellbeing programs and supporting the school overall in that way.

That story shows that ‘wellbeing’ is a broad topic and it may have a different meaning for different people. It's important to be clear on what you are committing to so that you are consistent across the board.

I am a huge fan of the definition that Scotch College in Adelaide has embraced. It's from Dr Rachel Dodge:

In essence, stable wellbeing is when individuals have the psychological, social and physical resources they need to meet a particular psychological, social and/or physical challenge. When individuals have more challenges than resources, the see-saw dips, along with their wellbeing, and vice-versa.

Shawn Kasbergen, Director of Student Wellbeing at Scotch explains:

… this definition gives the implication that wellbeing is always in a state of flux. If we perceive that there are too many challenges for the resources we possess, our wellbeing can decline. Conversely, if we don't experience adequate challenge in our lives, individuals can stagnate and lack a sense of meaning and purpose.

So, commitment to wellbeing is not only helping students, but also staff build their toolkits to help deal with psychological, social and physical challenges that could arise in this ever-changing world.

This is the preventative approach we must commit to. I like to call this building and protecting wellbeing. You are also committing to the implementation by taking action in the classroom and across the whole school (and if you're a parent, you may consider committing to implementing this at home).

Not one, but all

Just as Mark Butler did at Al Durrah, any program will be most effective when everyone is on the same page.

Remember, it's unrealistic and unfair to think it's one person's responsibility, when in fact it's everyone's.

The real issue is, you've probably noticed that some teachers are keen to take on school initiatives, such as wellbeing, and other staff don't like change/new things being introduced and will therefore be resistant.

This issue can be explained using the diffusion of innovation theory, as shown in figure 2.1.

American sociologist Everett Rogers created the theory based on the fact that innovations are not adopted by all individuals in a social system over the same time sequence. The theory can be classified into five adopter categories according to how long it takes each group to begin using the new idea.

The five adopter categories, as outlined by Wayne LaMorte from Boston University School of Public Health, are:

1. Innovators: These are people who want to be the first to try the innovation. They are venturesome and interested in new ideas. These people are very willing to take risks, and are often the first to develop new ideas. Very little, if anything, needs to be done to appeal to this population. They make up 2.5 per cent.
2. Early adopters: These are people who represent opinion leaders. They enjoy leadership roles, and embrace change opportunities. They are already aware of the need to change and so are very comfortable adopting new ideas. Strategies to appeal to this population include how-to manuals and information sheets on implementation. They do not need information to convince them to change. They make up 13.5 per cent.
3. Early majority: These people are rarely leaders, but they do adopt new ideas before the average person. That said, they typically need to see evidence that the innovation works before they are willing to adopt it. Strategies to appeal to this population include success stories and evidence of the innovation's effectiveness. This group makes up 34 per cent.
4. Late majority: These people are sceptical of change, and will only adopt an innovation after it has been tried by the majority. Strategies to appeal to this population include information on how many other people have tried the innovation and have adopted it successfully. Late majority make up 34 per cent.
5. Laggards: These people are bound by tradition and very conservative. They are very sceptical of change and are the hardest group to bring on board. Strategies to appeal to this population include statistics, fear appeals and pressure from people in the other adopter groups. These people make up 16 per cent.

What this means is that, in terms of embedding commitment in your school, you need to focus on the early adopters and early majority first to make things happen. These middle categories are typically more willing to try new things and are often the risk takers. Avoid spending your time and energy on convincing the laggards of the need for wellbeing initiatives.

Avoid spending your time and energy on convincing the laggards of the need for wellbeing initiatives.

Ben Catalano, principal of Tenison Woods Catholic School, is fully aware of the innovation of diffusion theory. He explains how he introduces wellbeing in the context of knowing you will have early adopters, laggards and everything in between: ‘Teacher education is number one. Covering what positive education is and the basics of it’.

From here Ben explains:

Every time I have introduced wellbeing to a school, nearly immediately I'll have a handful of staff approach me, wanting to know more and to access resources. These are my early adopters. They are the voice for wellbeing.

Ben engages with his early adopters to help with wellbeing initiatives and to run ideas past them. He says, ‘I often step back and let the early adopters take over’. The early adopters could even form part of your wellbeing advisory committee (which we will talk about shortly).

Ben also highlights the importance of consistency around messaging:

It's important as a leader to be ‘vocal’ about wellbeing. At my previous school [St Martin's De Porres], after two years we made it clear wellbeing is part of the school — it's not just a catch phrase.

This included updating school documents and policies to say wellbeing is part of the school culture and when a new teacher starts at the school, they are fully aware that wellbeing is at the forefront.

But what about the late majority and laggards? Ben shares: ‘Some do see it as important, but perhaps they're overwhelmed and aren't prepared to embed it in their classroom to the extent we'd like’.

I love Ben's advice:

So what we say to the laggards is certain wellbeing initiatives are non-negotiable. For example, we invested in an explicitly taught curriculum/resources that we ensured were timetabled in every classroom. This was the non-negotiable: that it would be taught with the resources/scope and sequence. However, we ensured that all staff had a knowledgeable other or early adaptor as a support. This way no staff felt left behind.

Ben has found this approach extremely effective when dealing with the complexities of staff. And he also made a great point that:

I am so passionate about wellbeing and making it part of the school culture and there's so much evidence out there as to the benefit, I will always go in to bat for positive education, and I have so much research to point laggards towards if I need to.

Over time everyone will see the benefit and be swayed by the adopter groups who are raving fans.

A youthful and passionate educator, Andrew Mittiga teaches at Wilderness School in Adelaide. In a fantastic wellbeing discussion over coffee he brought up the topic of change fatigue. Sara Antliff, Talent Management Lead at Atlassian, sums up change fatigue as ‘resistance or passive resignation to organizational changes on the part of an employee’.

As a leader, it's important to be mindful of change fatigue and to not introduce too many new ideas all at the same time to staff.

Move your troops

Once you've got a few of your early adopters up and running, you can start to champion the others in a couple of ways.