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Can I help you?
(The Alumni Association of the Instutute of Education asked for an article about the West Sussex NUT helpline. This appeared in their Bulletin in December 2001)
"I am sorry to bother you but…."
That is how most of the people who phone me start their conversations. Sometimes their problems are nothing more serious than "How do I join the union?" or "What are the regulations about…?" Sometimes they offer a glimpse into someone's living nightmare.
I gave up my job of union representative as a result of illness but was able to keep the more sedentary job of helpline co-ordinator. As with a union rep, colleagues know that anything said to me is confidential, and they entrust me with all kinds of personal information. Usually a whole web of health, family, relationship and professional difficulties entangle the people who ring up and they feel the need to tell me the whole problem 'from the beginning' – well, it’s what I'm there for.
People under stress do strange things. I vividly remember one colleague (whom we were able to help in the end) unravelling a whole history for me which I found difficult to follow. Only in passing at the end was it mentioned that this person had been suspended from work that morning.
It is the job of the helpline co-ordinator to listen. If possible I advise, but I do not intervene. Behind me there is a team of casework officers – most of whom have a full or part-time teaching job as well – who will spend hours listening, discussing and helping. When necessary we call on the professional workers of the union, the Teachers' Benevolent Fund (a charity which supports teachers) and Teacherline (a professional counselling service).
The number of calls I receive is growing year on year, from 20 in 1996 to 203 in 2000. Perhaps the most striking thing I have found is that the last straw does not usually come from disobedient or disruptive pupils – teachers manage to cope with them – but from above: "I am not being supported." "I feel I am being undermined."
Not all of the bullies are in the playground. Hurtful negative criticism and lack of support are the main issues. There are teachers who have contemptuously been told, sometimes in front of colleagues or pupils, not to bother to apply for the pay threshold (a performance-related bonus).
The consequences of medical problems often become helpline business. As it has become difficult for people to take early retirement or retirement on the grounds of ill health, there are a lot of people teaching who are very ill. Some schools (the one at which I teach part time is a model) are very sympathetic. In others, people with illness or with childcare responsibilities are made to feel guilty.
Last but not least there are the members driven over the edge when an Ofsted inspection is due. I need scarcely mention the Ofsted inspection as a source of stress and a feeling of being "named and shamed." Teachers deserve better.
Excuse me. That's the phone.
Derek McMillan received his MA in Media in Education from the Institute in November 2000. He now teaches mathematics part time in West Sussex, where he runs the West Sussex Teachers’ Association helpline and is responsible for the union’s website
