Lucy Easthope, is UK’s leading authority on recovering from disaster. She has been advisor on nearly every major disaster of the past two decades, including the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami, 9/11, the 7/7 bombings, the Salisbury Poisonings, Grenfell. Most recently advising the Prime Minister’s Office on the Covid-19 pandemic.
My favourite events, talking about my new book Come What May and my life working in disaster response, are with teachers and schools leadership. It always feels a great way to to honour my mum and dad who were both secondary school teachers. I was made strong with staffroom humour and my cupboards are filled with “best teacher” chipped mugs that I inherited. All of their schools were in extremely deprived areas and life came at the children and the staff fast. One of my most vivid childhood memories is the Monday morning after the Hillsborough disaster on the 15th April 1989 when several of my classmates had come into school, in Merseyside still processing what they had seen, heard, escaped from. I spoke to one of them for the first time in 30 years earlier this year and he told me that the way our teacher helped him that day and in the weeks and months had followed had had a profound effect on him. So much so that he trained to become a primary school teacher, took on the Year 5 class at the school we both attended and is now the head there. That brought tears to my eyes. Teachers are framed as making difference and changing lives and altering stars but as I explained at my session with SSAT members in November that leaves them vulnerable to ‘vocational awe’. They set themselves incredibly high standards; thrive on making a difference; go the extra mile and are their job. Their personal identities are hard to disentangle from their ‘work’. This also means that some of the strategies that corporations use to tackle burnout and exhaustion are near-impossible to apply to teachers. Nobody gets to bring their B game. To take a spontaneous day off. To leave safeguarding paperwork or a bullying accusation to tomorrow.
I asked delegates to come with me when I explained that the disaster recovery literature may have some nuggets in there that speak to them but to find it useful you need to cross a rubicon that the pandemic was a disaster, and that the aftermath is made harder still by austerity and by some many societal issues and challenges. You also have to take me at face value that the way we suddenly switched to online learning in the 20-21 lockdowns changed the relationship between parents and staff and children and schools. Issues like increasing Emotional Based School Avoidance, mental health decline and profound anger at teaching staff were all baked in from that point.
But if you believe me on that you will often find quite a rich seam of coping strategies that may help. I realised when my dad died suddenly in 2023 that immersing myself in emergency response and the aftermath of hundreds of major events had given me different ways of approaching the care of my own sanity. Hopefully some of these might help:
- Think of yourself as a leader in times of permacrisis – a lantern bearer – and for that the New Zealanders have written some really lovely guidance. Download it here and spend some time digesting it and applying it.
- Find psychological support that works for you – I was very clear in my chapter Kintsugi how grateful I was to my American colleagues after 9/11 who approached regular psychological debriefing and support as simply a form of maintenance for the head and for the soul. Don’t wait for a crisis to engage with things like talking therapies and to think about your personality type which can have a bearing on what works best for you.
- My chapter on Needful Things is really important to me. Teachers are notorious for putting themselves far down on a long list of priorities. This really hits when other life pressures start to kick in – caught in a storm of looking after both your own children and older relatives, or a diagnosis of serious illness. Its time to really take stock of you and your needs. This has been a useful article to start conversations in staff rooms https://www.elle.com/uk/life-and-culture/culture/a46390035/are-we-ok-covid-pandemic/
- Burnout is such an insidious little creeper – one minute you are in denial about it and then bang it hits you – I find this video really useful. Educators say to me that they are afraid of admitting Burnout in case they are taken away from a job they love but my experience has been that it does not need to mean that. The first step is rest.
- As school leaders, make your 2026 resolution that you will review again the communications burden on staff and where necessary manage down the use of messaging. Really be clear with parents around email expectations. It’s also been heartening to see schools allowing more flexible working and ways to give staff some time off for rest or to attend things like their own child’s school play. These things really matter.
- I say in Come What May that gratitude is plant food. Liberal use of it hopes to grow resilience and compassion. Really make sure you are saying fulsome thankyousat both home and school. Traumatic experiences can keep us in a state of ‘fixity’ and that can lead to bitterness and a sense that people are always letting us down.
- A lot of people are getting through and keeping going but anhedonia – not feeling any joy when you are doing it – is rife. Joy needs to be nurtured. Seek out fun ashamedly. Encourage staff to do the same. Take stock of recent years and what they have done – I find this video really useful for starting a conversation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3tS8Z8Podg
- Talk at a staff meeting about the school emergency plan and what will happen in the event of an incident – the phone tree, where the charged and ready to go torches are, expectations of staff (coming in on a holiday?) The world can feel uncertain and actually talking about that and feeling readier can help to manage down what we call the “startle factor”. Listen out for my new BBC Radio 4 programme “Are you ready?” First aired on the 7th December and available on BBC Sounds. One key takeaway from that will be to make sure first aid training is regularly refreshed and first aid and bleed kits are easily accessible.
- Next time you have an intense Year 5 child trying to process world events, remember my story at the start of the piece. Many emergency planners and responders have a childhood origin story of a major event that made them determined to work in this area. I do talks and events for all sorts of age groups and am a very proud trustee of a children’s charity formed after the Grenfell disaster. There are over 100 degree programmes relating to emergency management in the UK and apprenticeship schemes for after GCSE and A level. Children are questioning and afraid, but this can be redirected towards education and understanding. We are over protecting them and the children are on to us! Direct sixth formers and older children to this podcast.
- Most importantly – take it from me that life is startlingly short and fragile. Laugh. Love hard. Live. Throw that kitchen disco. Slam the AC/DC on in the car on the way home. Savour and delight wherever possible.
Further information is here
Lucy Easthope’s books are When The Dust Settles and Come What May
