Caring for Self: A Workbook for Early Childhood Educator Wellbeing

A workbook to relieve stress and burnout 

Caring for Self: A Workbook for Early Childhood Educator Wellbeing supports early childhood educators in addressing the intricacies of their health—emotional, physical, cognitive, and social—in the increasingly complex and changing landscape of early childhood education. Go beyond the shallow aspects of “self care” like manicures and vacations and focus on the more fundamental, emotional parts of well-being. Increase your professional and personal wellbeing by strengthening your foundation of professional skills, reflective practice, and emotional support.

Every day, early childhood caregivers leave the field after experiencing workplace stress and burnout. Without adequate support and training, caregivers lack the ability to engage in the emotional work of caring for young children and their families. This workbook offers a three-pronged approach to mitigating compassion fatigue: building healthy relationships, establishing boundaries, and having a sense of agency. It teaches skills to help midgait burnout and compassion fatigue by building self-care and resiliency practices and helps caregivers identify their emotions around challenges, recognize barriers and bridges to meeting their professional goals, and implement tools for self-care and mentoring to increase their effectiveness while decreasing workplace stress.

Through abundant reflective questions and activities, this workbook helps the profession reflect on the meaning of well-being, identify emotions in the work, and engage in professional skills of self-stewardship to foster well-being. It walks through steps of reflection, identifying and accessing emotional support, and professional skill development in pursuit of well-being. It culminates in a six-step problem-solving pathway for identifying and resolving problems that arise in professional practice and the emotions that accompany them. 

Dr. Jennifer Baumgartner is an associate professor in the School of Education at Louisiana State University. Her research centers around stress among teachers and children in early care settings. Her work is published in several journals, including Journal of Health Psychology, Early Child Development and Care, Journal of Early Childhood Teacher Education, and Young Children. Ingrid Anderson Ed.D. started in 2011 at Portland State University. Dr. Anderson’s focus is on early childhood educators’ experiences developing resiliency and finding joy in their work, learner centered models of early childhood, and reflective practice in early childhood education. She is coauthor of Supporting Children’s Mental Health and Well-being: A Strength-based Approach for Early Childhood Educators from Redleaf Press.