Crisis Intervention Activities in Teachers’ Work

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to shed light on the issue of teachers’ tasks in the sphere of crisis intervention in a school setting. The paper discusses selected issues covering intervention activities taken by teachers in the face of difficult and crisis situations which their pupils experience. The rapidly changing present-day reality provides numerous diverse and often challenging situations, characterised by high stress levels. They also affect children and teenagers, and might constitute both a certain type of opportunity and a threat to their development. Due to the frequency of contacts between teachers and their pupils, it is worth taking a close look at the situation of teachers and the measures they adopt in the face of a crisis being experienced by a pupil. It is worth mentioning that the teacher’s profession is marked by high social expectations regarding their competence and by a growing number of tasks characteristic of other professions, e.g. psychologists, social workers or therapists. A teacher’s task is not only to provide knowledge and educate, but also to carry out intervention activities due to the dynamics of interpersonal relations and the challenges of contemporary world. The article could serve as a contribution to further deliberations and studies concerning teachers’ competence in the sphere of crisis intervention.