(by Amber Dembowski)
What does it mean to live well? I mean, I’m from a state whose slogan is “The Good Life.” And for many reasons I believe this to be true. So, why do I often feel the weight of the world, and have to work so hard to “thrive” and flourish?
Well, when I started digging into the research, found in a publication titled State of the City, it confirmed how I believe many people around me are feeling in the Omaha Metro, and sometimes this validation is nice. It doesn’t make you feel as crazy. It confirms that flourishing is hard right now.
What the research found is the mental health in the Omaha Metro is not good in comparison to the country. And what makes Omaha unique is the degree of Gen Xers struggling with mental health, at a time when many people this age are finding some sort of mental and emotional stability. In fact, 61% are experiencing depression, 73% are experiencing anxiety, and 68% are experiencing burnout. To be clear, Gen Xers are those born in the 70s and 80s. Most current school leaders would most likely fall within this age group. Ouch. That’s rough.
And if you’re younger or older than GenX, when looking at all age groups, more than one out of every two people in the Omaha metro area are frequently feeling either depressed, anxious or both, and more than three out of every four are often feeling weighed down by stress. Obviously, this paints a concerning picture as well.
What’s even more interesting to me is digging into the research around trauma related experiences. Thirty-eight percent of adults in the Omaha Metro have experienced significant trauma in their lives. This is 10% higher than the national average. Trauma alters the course of someone’s life – affecting everything – but most certainly someone’s mental well-being. And here’s the rub …
38% of adults in our community have experienced significant trauma, which trickles into the household, which trickles down to their children, which trickles into the school and manifests as aggression and big behaviors, which day after day support of these manifestations creates secondary trauma for educators. There’s no wonder that our rate of depression, anxiety, stress, and burnout are so high in the world of education. Schools take on the challenges and weight of their community. School leaders take on the challenges and weight of their school. It’s a cyclical process. And honestly, we’re in a crisis.
My goal is to provide some resources to promote emotional and mental well-being for school leaders to counter-balance all of this, however, cultivating some good habits is only a start to combating it. Strong mental well-being will take leaning into each other, connecting more, and genuinely wanting to help each other flourish.
All in all, there’s no quick answer to any of this. I sure as hell don’t have the silver bullet. But I’m certainly not going to cave to the idea that “this is just how it is,” because it shouldn’t be. I’m extremely passionate about education, and I’m certainly not going to let what this research has found take down and burnout really good people who can flourish as school leaders and educators. How about you?
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