Last updated: October 28, 2026. Forte publishes this guide, and Forte is one of the options compared below.
- Most of what gets sold as staff support isn't Mental Fitness. Meditation apps are self-guided content, EAPs are short-term counseling for when something goes wrong, and clinical platforms treat mental health conditions.
- Forte is the only Mental Fitness platform in this guide. Every member of your staff gets their own Forte Coach, a real person outside school, plus short exercises between calls.
- For boarding school staff, who live where they work, that outside person matters more than almost anywhere else. Forte isn't therapy, so pair it with your EAP or health plan for clinical care.
This guide is for whoever decides how a boarding school takes care of its people: the head of school, the assistant head, the dean of faculty, the HR director, the business office, the board.
Your people take care of everyone else. Who takes care of them?
Why is boarding school staff stress different?
In most jobs, people go home at the end of the day. At a boarding school, many of your faculty go home to the dorm.
At Millbrook School in New York, most of about 80 faculty live on campus, and "many faculty members live in dormitory apartments and supervise boarding students on weeknights and weekends" (Millbrook School). That's typical. Independent schools even have a name for the person who can do it all: a "triple threat," someone who can "teach, coach, and live in a dorm at a boarding school" (Carney Sandoe).
Your people chose this life, and most of them love it. They get to know students in a way day-school teachers rarely do. But the job has a shape that makes stress hard to put down:
- The day doesn't end. Class, then practice, then study hall, then lights out. Then a knock on the apartment door at 11 p.m.
- Work and home share a wall. The colleague you disagreed with in a department meeting is also the neighbor you see at the mailbox.
- Everyone knows everyone. On a small campus, asking for help can feel like announcing it.
- Families live it too. A spouse and kids share the campus, the schedule and the fishbowl.
The broader data points the same way. RAND's 2026 State of the American Teacher survey found that 55% of K-12 public school teachers experience frequent job-related stress, compared with 34% of similar working adults. Time spent working outside contract hours ranked among their top stressors, and 18% said they were likely to leave their current job by the end of the school year (RAND, 2026). RAND surveyed public school teachers, not boarding faculty. But at a boarding school, work outside the school day is built into the job.
How a school organizes those roles matters too. A small 2021 study of two boarding schools in England found that separating teaching and boarding roles "served to reduce role stress and role conflict for boarding and teaching staff alike" (Clair, Griffith University, 2021). Many schools can't or won't split those roles. Which means the people holding all of them need support built for that life.
At a boarding school, the colleague you need to vent about may live across the hall. Support only works if it comes from outside.
What mental health and wellbeing support do boarding school staff need?
Before you compare vendors, decide what your people need. For boarding school staff, five things matter most:
- A real person to talk to. Not a library and not a chatbot. Someone who learns their story and remembers it next time.
- Real privacy from campus. The person they talk to should have no connection to the school, the dorm or the faculty room.
- Help for ordinary hard weeks. Most of your people aren't in crisis. They're stretched thin in late February.
- A fit for a strange schedule. Dorm duty, weekend duty and afternoon coaching mean support has to work around them.
- Almost no lift for your team. Your business office and dean of faculty are already stretched too.
Wellness apps, EAPs, clinical care or Mental Fitness: which is which?
Every staff support option falls into one of four groups. Only one of them is Mental Fitness.
- Meditation and self-guided apps (Headspace, Calm). Audio and video content people use on their own. Low cost and easy to start, but no person on the other end. These are content libraries, not Mental Fitness.
- Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs). A benefit that usually comes with your health plan or through a provider, offering short-term counseling and referrals, mostly used when something has gone wrong. EAPs are crisis and referral support, not Mental Fitness.
- Clinical mental health platforms (Spring Health, Lyra Health, Modern Health). Therapy, psychiatry and coaching from licensed providers, built to treat mental health conditions. These are clinical care, not Mental Fitness.
- Mental Fitness (Forte). Proactive training for everyday life with a dedicated human Coach, plus short exercises in between. It's built for the ordinary hard weeks, before they turn into a crisis. It isn't therapy.
If the line between Mental Fitness and mental health feels fuzzy, our guide to Mental Fitness vs. mental health explains the difference.
Comparison at a glance
| Option | Category | Who your staff talk to | Privacy from campus | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Forte | Mental Fitness (the only one in this guide) | Their own Forte Coach, by phone, as early as the next day | Coach is outside the school; calls are never recorded; the school sees only anonymized trends | Staff who are stretched thin and need a real person outside campus, before it becomes a crisis |
| Headspace | Meditation and self-guided app | No one; self-guided content | Private use | Staff who'll practice meditation on their own; free for U.S. K-12 educators and school staff |
| Calm | Meditation and self-guided app | No one; self-guided content | Private use | Schools that want a sleep and relaxation library; free teacher subscriptions have ended |
| Your EAP | Crisis and referral support | A counselor through the EAP provider, usually for a limited number of sessions | Confidential, outside provider | Short-term counseling and referrals when something has gone wrong |
| Spring Health, Lyra Health, Modern Health | Clinical mental health platforms | Licensed therapists, psychiatric providers and coaches | Confidential, outside providers | Schools that need broad therapy and psychiatry coverage |
Scroll the table sideways on a phone. Competitor details come from each company's own public pages as of October 2026.
Forte: the Mental Fitness option
What it is. Forte is a Mental Fitness platform. Every member of your staff gets their own Forte Coach, a real person outside work who's with them for all of it, plus short exercises in the Forte app between calls. It isn't a meditation app, an EAP or AI coaching, and it isn't therapy.
Why it fits boarding schools. Everything lives in one app. They pick a time, their Coach calls them, and exercises keep them growing between calls. Because Sessions are audio calls, a house parent can take one from their apartment, their car or a walk around the lake (how Forte works). And because their Coach has no connection to your school, they can say the thing they'd never say in the faculty room.
What's included.
- A dedicated Coach. Members can keep the same Coach or switch any time, and Forte Coaches come from backgrounds that include ICF-certified coaching, counseling, social work and pastoral care (Forte Coaches).
- Members can connect with their Coach as early as the next day.
- Short exercises in the app, about 5 to 10 minutes, between Sessions.
- Confidentiality. Calls are never recorded, Forte keeps no medical records, and your school sees only anonymized, school-wide trends, never what any one person said.
- A customized launch plan and kickoff, with Forte's team closely involved through the first 90 days (Forte for schools).
Here's how one school clerk and Forte Member put it on Forte's education page: "My Coach made me feel seen and heard without the pressure of being judged."
Things to consider. Forte isn't clinical care. If a staff member needs therapy or psychiatry, their Coach helps them find the right resource, and your EAP or health plan covers that part. Pricing is set for each school, so it takes a short demo rather than a checkout page.
Headspace
What it is. A meditation and self-guided app. Headspace offers "free Headspace access to K-12 educators and school staff across the U.S." (Headspace). Schools can also buy Headspace for their organization.
Who it's best for. Staff who already like meditation and will use an app on their own.
Things to consider. There's no person on the other end. For someone carrying a hard term, a library of content isn't the same as being known. It's a useful extra, but it isn't Mental Fitness.
Calm
What it is. A meditation, sleep and relaxation app. Calm used to give free Premium subscriptions to teachers, but its help center now says, "We are no longer accepting applications for free Calm Premium subscriptions for educators." Calm offers free downloadable classroom guides and a self-care guide for teachers instead, and points schools wanting staff access to Calm for Business (Calm).
Who it's best for. Schools that want a sleep and relaxation library for staff.
Things to consider. Like Headspace, it's self-guided. There's no person to talk to, and it isn't Mental Fitness.
Your EAP
What it is. Many schools already have an Employee Assistance Program through their health plan or a separate provider. It typically offers a phone line, a limited number of short-term counseling sessions and referrals.
Who it's best for. Staff who are facing a specific problem and need short-term counseling or a referral.
Things to consider. An EAP is built for when something has gone wrong, and it only helps the people who call it. Keep it. It does a real job. But it isn't designed to be with someone through an ordinary hard term, and it isn't Mental Fitness.
Clinical mental health platforms: Spring Health, Lyra Health, Modern Health
What they are. Workplace mental health benefits built around clinical care. Spring Health offers therapy, psychiatry and medication management, plus coaching and self-guided tools (Spring Health). Lyra Health offers therapy, coaching, psychiatry and specialty care (Lyra Health). Modern Health covers self-guided tools, coaching and clinical care, with a network across 200+ countries and territories (Modern Health).
Who they're best for. Schools that need broad therapy and psychiatry coverage for staff, often as an EAP replacement.
Things to consider. Clinical depth is their strength. If most of your faculty are stretched rather than unwell, you may pay for coverage many won't use. None publish pricing, so each takes a sales conversation. These are clinical platforms, not Mental Fitness.
How should a head of school choose?
Ask every vendor these six questions. Then ask yourself one more: would you use it? When the leader goes first, everyone follows.
- Who will my people talk to? A person, an AI or a content library? Each is a different kind of help.
- Is it Mental Fitness, therapy or crisis support? Ask what happens for a teacher who's just worn down in March.
- Is the person they talk to outside my school? On a residential campus, this decides whether anyone uses it.
- Can my staff use it around dorm duty and weekends? Ask how Sessions are scheduled and delivered.
- What exactly will I see? School-wide trends are fine. Anything about an individual isn't.
- Who runs it? Find out who handles launch and outreach, so it doesn't land on your dean of faculty.
For more on supporting teachers specifically, see our guide to Mental Fitness for teachers. If retention is your main concern, see our guide to private school teacher retention. And if someone on your staff tells you they're not okay, here's what to say in the first minute.
Who takes care of the people who take care of everyone?
We know you care, but you can't sit beside every one of your people. Some things never get said at work, and on a boarding campus, work is everywhere.
That's why Forte gives every one of your people their own Forte Coach, a real person outside work who's with them for all of it: the hard weeks, the good ones and the 11 p.m. knock on the door.
You become a place where everyone has someone in their corner. So your people feel as cared for as the people they care for.
Before you choose anything for your staff, give yourself five days. Five Days to Train Within is a free gift for you: five short Mental Fitness practices to slow down, notice what matters, and come back to yourself. Then pass the ones you love along to your faculty. Start your five days
Put a Coach in their corner. Your people take care of everyone else. Who takes care of them? Forte gives every one of your people their own Coach, a real person outside work who's with them for all of it. So they feel as cared for as the people they care for. Book a demo to see what it looks like for your school. Book a demo
Not ready for a demo? Take the free team Mental Fitness Scan.