Investigating the role of coordinators in the development of an integrated process to facilitate holistic well-being in six South African school communities

Abstract

Schools are utilised in various societies to deploy interventions and programmes aimed at enhancing the health and well-being of learners. The vulnerability of learners underscores the importance of ensuring that they are supported to actualise as individuals in order to promote a socially just society. The attainment thereof through a well-being approach, rather than a health promotion paradigm, requires a multi-level process understanding of enhancing well-being. As such, the development of an integrated, multi-level process within South African school communities that sets out to enhance well-being though an inclusive, holistic and proactive perspective is an innovative approach that is vital to ensuring that spaces for the flourishing thereof is enabled. The process encompasses the involvement of all school community members through engagement on individual, relational and collective levels. Against this backdrop, the purpose of this study was to contribute to the sustainable coordination of the process to enhance holistic wellbeing in South African school communities. The aim of this study was to explore the role of the coordinator in this process. The objectives were to 1) establish how the coordinators perceive their role and 2) how the team members perceive their role. Coordinators are optimally positioned to continuously engage with the school community, ensuring that needs and concerns are addressed through proactive, holistic and purposeful steering of a well-being process on multiple levels. Methodologically, the study followed a basic-descriptive qualitative research design anchored within a constructivist-interpretive research paradigm. Three data sets were collected in this study. The first data set comprised the reflexive journal kept by the researcher throughout his engagement as a well-being coordinator of a well-being support team within the integrated, multi-level well-being process, and as researcher. The second data set included semi-structured individual interviews with four coordinators of WBSTs towards the end of their fifteenth-month involvement in the larger research project. Based on the data collected from the second data set, further topics were identified to be explored in the next data set. The third data set encompassed two semi-structured focus group interviews with seven well-being support team members. Following a thematic analysis, five main themes emerged: 1) Mind shifts experienced in the role as coordinator; 2) responsibilities within the well-being support team; 3) responsibilities within the broader school community and beyond; 4) strengths perceived as essential to the role of WBST coordinator and 5) the steering of the process to ensure sustainability. The study's findings indicated that as part of the process of steering well-being enhancement in their school communities, coordinators took on various roles similar to that of a community psychologist, as described in the work of Nelson and Prilleltensky (2010). These included the coordinator as a visionary, leader, listener and sense-maker, asset-seeker, inclusive host, and evaluator and implementer. The complexity of an integrated process to facilitate well-being is thus mirrored in the coordinator's role, in which they undertake various tasks. Through their synergy, the steering of proactive and holistic well-being is supported. In view of the findings of the study, recommendations are made for practice, policy development and future research.