The Urban Teaching Cohort: pre-service training to support mental health in urban schools

Abstract

Supporting students’ mental health needs is critical in high-poverty urban school districts where many students are at risk for mental health problems. Although teacher–student relationships are at the core of student mental health promotion in the classroom, many teacher preparation programmes do not adequately prepare pre-service teachers entering into urban teaching for the realities of urban teaching. Miami University’s Urban Teaching Cohort (UTC) is an innovative, community-based approach to preparing pre-service teachers for work in the field of urban teacher preparation. In this paper, we review research on the challenges impacting the mental health of urban youth, describe how these challenges connect to the work of urban teachers and discuss how urban teacher preparation can help teachers better support students’ mental health. We discuss the elements of the UTC programme and how this preparation approach can help teachers build relationships with urban students and their families, as well as understand their communities from an asset perspective, to create a positive classroom community that supports the mental health of all students. Preliminary qualitative data indicate student and community support for the programme and support the impact of the programme on relationships and teaching practices.

Keywords:

• Urban teaching
• education
• school mental health
• teacher mental health
• student mental health