Using the Cultivating Wellness approach, each program can create staff wellness activities to fit the unique needs and demographics of its staff. The health manager’s role in cultivating staff wellness may be different in each program. The health manager may be the main person responsible for planning and carrying out staff wellness activities, or on a staff wellness team. 

It's important for the health manager to know what their program is doing to cultivate staff wellness — including planning, setting up a staff wellness team, getting data, planning specific activities — and to know the expectations for their own role.

Tips and Strategies for Planning Staff Wellness Activities

Read the Cultivating Wellness resource to learn more about the eight dimensions of well-being. You can plan activities to encourage staff well-being around:

Occupational Wellness

Work with your program to offer time to exercise, immunization clinics, support to stop smoking, and workshops on healthy communication and respect in the workplace. Also offer healthy food in the break room and vending machines.

Emotional Wellness

Offer mental health promotion and emotional wellness education that includes a focus on signs of stress, stress reduction activities, and making a personal stress response plan.

Spiritual Wellness

Work with your program to offer staff a quiet space to relax, meditate, or pray. Also, you can help staff by offering group activities, such as a bulletin board or newsletter where staff can share personal stories or reflections about how they find meaning in their work.

Intellectual Wellness

Encourage staff to improve knowledge and skills through professional development. Give them opportunities to share their creative interests with co-workers, children, and families. Encourage staff to think about their strengths and areas of growth and to work with their supervisors on a professional development plan.

Physical Wellness

Offer health education on physical health topics, such as injury prevention, substance use, ergonomics (e.g., safe lifting), healthy nutrition, physical activity, and health concerns common to early childhood staff. Support staff’s individual health needs while you make sure their personal information stays private. Specific activities for physical wellness may include helping staff find a health care provider, reviewing recommended adult immunizations, and promoting routine health screenings.

Environmental Wellness

Schedule regular inspections to find environmental health concerns that may affect your program, such as toxins in the air, water, soil, or food; chemicals; and other hazards. Take steps to reduce exposure to these hazards. You can also offer environmental health education. This helps staff understand environmental wellness, including environmental health issues in your region and community, and in their homes.

Financial Wellness

Encourage your program leaders to offer support for staff financial health. This can include sharing financial resources, inviting community members to speak with staff (in a group or one on one) about budgeting and other financial advice, and helping staff make the most of their benefits packages and use financial planning resources in the community.

Social Wellness

Help staff find ways to connect with others and widen their networks of support. Your program can encourage staff to take part in reflective supervision or consultation, team-building activities, or other social activities. You can also help connect staff to community services and support (e.g., support groups, exercise classes, spiritually oriented spaces).

Last Updated: January 15, 2025