In-service teacher training to provide psychosocial support and care in high-risk and high-need schools: school-based intervention partnerships

Abstract

This article uses a South African case study to argue that postcolonial, emerging economy societies in transition often contain schools characterised as high risk and high need. Such schools require teachers to adapt to roles other than facilitating learning, such as psychosocial support and care, and which requires additional professional development. In the absence of structured teacher professional development programmes, alternatives are required to assist teachers. The paper describes a nine-year partnership between higher education researchers and teachers in high-risk and high-need schools in three South African provinces. The participatory reflection and action (PRA) study served as platform for a school-based intervention to assist in-service teachers to adapt to their additional responsibilities. Thematic analysis was used to identify the ways in which teachers' adaptation to high risk benefitted from the programme, and self-determination theory is used to argue for a dynamic and interconnected rela-tionship between the teachers' demonstrated pathways to psychosocial support and care. The article argues that in socio-politically transforming societies where need is high for in-service teacher training and formal structures for teacher professional development may be limited, partnerships between researchers and teachers appear to be useful platforms for school-based interventions to support teacher resilience.

Community-based teacher professional development in remote areas in Indonesia

“…Schleicher (2015) reported that teachers in Indonesia attending a teacher development programme in which the district office and the school supervisors were directly involved, felt more confident and better prepared than teachers not attending such programmes. These findings are consistent with Ebersöhn et al (2015) Downloaded by [202.46.29.29] at 23:00 14 December 2017 who found that school intervention for in-service teachers in high-risk and high-need schools in South Africa motivated teachers to gain competency and optimism, demonstrate management skills, and make valuable contributions in a group. Similarly, Bai (2014) found that a school-based professional development programme in Hong Kong enabled teachers to be more confident in teaching.…”

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