Psychosocial Risks at Work of Supportive Teacher - Case Study

Work in a special school as a supportive teacher of disabled children requires experience and mental resilience. The supportive teacher is exposed to a whole range of difficult behaviors of the child (i.e. psychosocial risks), including aggression, which brings many other threats with a dangerous nature (accidental). In this paper the results of research conducted among supportive teachers from one of the Polish special schools have been presented. The research contains the identification of psychosocial risks and, as a consequence, indications of ailments observed by the supportive teachers. The results of the conducted survey concern the type of threats with particular emphasis on psychosocial risks, as well as preventive activities that minimize the effects of these threats. In addition, the respondents indicated the extent of professional work on private and family life. The research tool used in this study is a questionnaire divided into three parts: hazard identification, assessment of psychosocial risks and potential effects of their occurrence, and subjective assessment of the impact of professional work on private life.