79% of teachers are not recommending their profession to friends and family. Why is that?
NJ Task Force on Public School Staff Shortages, 2023
Trusted by over 11,000 educators and administrators in K12 districts across the U.S.
“Every student outcome in a school is impacted by wellbeing of teachers. And the wellbeing of teachers depends on the conditions that leaders are able to create. And the quality of those conditions depend on leader’s wellbeing.
So first, be well."
How We Tackle Common K12 Challenges
Stress
Burnout
Anxiety
High Turnover
Here's what others are saying about SWBS...
There's often not many times where you can do some professional development with your leadership group that helps them grow as people, grow as a team and give them some tools and strategies that they can use immediately with their staff.
Martín is very skilled at leading a session with 25 people interjecting some fun and lighthearted activities that really get people to open up and feel comfortable and safe. I would highly recommend him to work with any leadership team because he has the skill to make them grow and be better for our students.
Dr. Ross Kasun
“I have become highly interested in positive psychology and look forward to learning even more about it and creating new ways to incorporate it into my life and my career.”
Isabelle Filiciello, MS CCC-SLP
“Martín is a vital part of any school’s effort to help adults… build their emotional and mental resilience. Thanks to Mr. Blank’s guidance and support, we’ve been able to make progress towards our staff well-being, retention, and engagement goals and look forward to a continued partnership with SWBS into the foreseeable future. I cannot recommend SWBS and Mr. Blank highly enough as an advisor, consultant, coach, and facilitator of positive interventions in school settings, from the superintendent’s office to the classroom, and everywhere in between.
Dr. Scott Taylor
"Most impressive has been staff's retention of interest and their efficacy in turning the teachings into practice. It's been a win-win experience all around. The teachers who started working with Martín in 2020 still look forward to his sessions to this day. Most other providers cannot sustain staff commitment to learning and translate that learning into practice..."
Rick Cohen
“I did not have time to analyze our school’s climate and culture data and create a presentation I could share with my team. SWBS helped us understand and share our data trends meanintfully. With this data, Martín helped facilitate conversations with our leadership team to formulate team-aligned strategies for the retention and wellbeing of our teachers.”
Nikki Dennis
" Mr. Blank’s has developed a comprehensive and well-thought out program for helping increase psychological wellbeing for teachers and school children...he has impressed me not only through his passion for teaching students and teachers to manage their emotions and stress levels, but in his commitment to learn research skills to measure the impact of his program’s effectiveness."
Dr. Fred Luskin
What We Do
Staff Retention Pulse
Want to know the top factors influencing your staff’s decision to stay or leave? Want to find correlations between student achievement and sucess and staff well-being? We bring your data to life by offering reliable and validated survey instruments by working with your existing survey data to compile a customized report of findings and recommendations.
Build Wellbeing Systems
How do you increase a sense of mattering among staff? How do you create conditions that lead to retention? How do you ensure that the investment you make is not just another program, but the legacy you leave behind? Create change that is woven into the fabric of your school or district through strategic planning and data-aligned implementation.
Program Evaluation
Want to know if your investment in a program is paying off?
We provide a program evaluation service to help school administrators improve the quality and effectiveness of their educational programs. Our experienced team of evaluators offers data-driven insights and recommendations, supporting you through the evaluation cycle from theory to report writing. Our systematic and rigorous approach ensures valid, reliable, and meaningful outcomes. Choose our program evaluation service for confidence in your programs and outcomes.
Resilience Journey
In this 8-session program which includes group sessions and 1-1 coaching, we train leaders and staff in positive psychology and research-based resilience practices used by high emotional-labor workers to fight burnout and improve resilience and well-being. Resilience practices don’t need to take hours to complete, and they equip teachers and administrative staff to succeed in jobs which require high degrees of emotional labor.
Outcomes
School Wellbeing Solutions measures and reports the impact of all interventions.
✔
Reduce time and expenses spent repeatedly training staff on initiatives that are not relevant or helpful to them.
✔
Decrease time and energy spent handling conflict and staff dissatisfaction.
✔
Put a halt to negativity and pessimism regarding change and pushback.
✔
Trigger upward spirals of positive climate indicators, such as collaboration and psychological safety.
Take the first step with your free starter kit
Your starter kit includes:
5 secrets to improve teacher & staff retention
Why "self-care training" isn't enough
What teachers really need (hint: not pizza parties!)
Wellbeing measures for staff
Wellbeing Insights
“I have never seen my community this engaged and excited “
Lizaday Rancap-Perez, Principal, Newark School District
%
In a SWBS impact assessment, staff who reported feeling supported were 31% less likely to report feeling exhausted and overwhelmed (p < .005).
In the same assessment, SWBS found that staff who felt support from supervisors were 2.5 times more likely to report wanting to stay in their positions in the near future (p < .005).
of over 500 participants of SWBS professional development sessions report being “highly satisfied with this training and would recommend it to others.”
97% report that the trainings are “highly relevant for my job.”
SWBS helps your school or district break the mold and overcome burnout, anxiety and stress rather than becoming another statistic.
Meet Our Founder
Hello!
I’m Martín | SWBS Founder
In 2006, I began teaching in the East San Francisco Bay and noticed my students were experiencing chronic stress. To address this, I trained with the International Association for Human Values and taught effective stress-management practices to thousands of educators and students. I was featured on PBS Nova’s The Future of Schools teaching breathing in the wake. of student suicides.
In 2017 I founded Astronauts SEL to infuse emotional identification and regulation in K12. and in 2019, received the Christopher Peterson Memorial Fellow for the Master of Applied Positive Psychology at UPenn. There, I studied with leading researchers in human flourishing, optimism, and resilience, including Dr. Angela Duckworth and Dr. Marty Seligman. During the COVID pandemic, I shifted my focus to support teacher wellbeing and have reached over 20,000 school-based individuals. I am grateful to do this work that impacts thousands of students and teachers every year.
Get Your Free Starter Kit
SWBS Starter Kit Includes:
- Top 5 obstacles to creating trust on your team.
- 6 ways to help increase people's sense of mattering.
- 5 ways to immediately bring down staff complaints.
- How to design a wellbeing strategy for staff.
- How to give feedback in ways that will strengthen relationships.
We support schools and districts nationally to improve wellbeing and retention of teachers & staff
California
Texas
Illinois
Oklahoma
New Jersey
Florida
Arizona
New York
Louisiana
South Carolina
North Carolina
Hawaii