New Montreal-made app designed to help teachers with their mental health

Educating youth in their formative years is one of the most important jobs out there. But are teachers being given the support needed to do so?

One Montrealer experienced the harsh reality herself and took matters into her own hands by creating The Teacher App.

It’s an app where educators will get to access mental-health resources, share knowledge, and call for help for anything teacher-related.

“I didn’t feel like everybody understood the teacher life,” said Amanda Tanner, the founder and CEO of The Teacher App. “Like I still wasn’t feeling completely heard and understood. And I was having a hard time feeling for things from the classroom or from the lack of vulnerability that I was unable to share because I felt stigmatized. I needed to be the hero. I needed to be the teacher. And I couldn’t show anyone that I was struggling.

“I’m going to just create a platform where I can anonymously message other teachers or people across Canada that work in the mental-health field as well, who have experience in education, who can relate or who can tell me you’re not alone.”

The goal for the app is to partner with school boards nationwide to offer it free of charge for teachers to access when they need it.

Educators will have access to resources, forums and more.

“How can we keep our teaching community safe and healthy and happy and keep that passion alive,” said teacher Christine Piercey. “And it’s always about the kids. And that’s why we do it. And that’s why, it is for me the best job to be with these kids every single day.

“It could be about some special needs. It could be about a behaviour, it could be other things, like I’m feeling really overwhelmed. You know, I see kids that are having emotional issues or family issues and I’m bringing that home and I’m thinking about it at night. I’m losing sleep.

“There is a lot of being a mom and being a nurse and being a psychologist and being a big sister and so many different things that the kids need being an ally, being a confidante. And sometimes it’s hard to navigate through all of that because like that’s not what we’re trained for.”

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Teacher Mandy Douglass says it can sometimes feel like teachers are completely alone with their problems – when in reality many other teachers are dealing with similar feelings.

“I first started teaching, I thought I was the only one,” said Douglass. “I would go home crying and think I was the worst teacher in the entire world. When in reality many others, if not all of them, were struggling with the same thing.

“We’re missing a lot of personnel in the schools, we’re missing teachers or missing TAs, behaviour specialists. These positions aren’t being filled. So the teachers are carrying multiple hats during the day and lives. We’re dealing with situations where there’s more anxiety with the students.

“There are many problems that I don’t know how to solve. So if I can grab my phone and go to a resource, that I can be connected with a mental-health specialist, that I can ask a question and get a response within a few minutes, within half an hour. That’s a huge asset.”

The app is set to launch in August.