The purpose of this research project is to gain insight and a deeper understanding of teachers’ perceptions of their self-efficacy when responding to students’ diverse social-emotional needs. Four research questions were asked and answered to explore the problem statement. Teaching is a very demanding profession including evolving expectations, parental, community, and stakeholder demands, and provincial mandates. Stressors include managing student behaviour, high workloads, lack of contact with colleagues, lack of support from parents, and demands from administrators. Teachers are expected to fulfill their professional responsibilities as student numbers increase, financial and human resources decrease, and students’ social-emotional and academic needs become more complex. These responsibilities and requirements weigh heavily on teachers to care for their own wellness, sense of balance, and organizational skills ahead of committing to the wellness of their students. The lack of consistency in the teaching profession can lead to anxiety, stress, frustration, and burnout, which research states contributes to low teacher self-efficacy (Hagenauer, Hasher & Volet, 2015; Skaalvik & Skaalvik, 2014; Sokal et al., 2021; Tze & Betts, 2010; Viel-Ruma, Houchins, Jolivette & Benson, 2010). In addition to ever-evolving teaching demands, at the time of this research, a global pandemic was occurring, which created more uncertainty. To better understand teachers’ perception of their self-efficacy when responding to the diverse social-emotional needs of their students, eight classroom teachers were interviewed over video conferencing. The researcher’s autoethnography was documented to triangulate evidence pertaining to literature on teacher self-efficacy and related topics which integrated the theories of self-efficacy and self-determination. Six themes emerged from the data, including: 1) job stress, burnout, and self-care; 2) challenges of meeting the diverse social-emotional needs of students; 3) the importance of teacher-student relationships; 4) the value of creating an emotionally safe classroom; 5) the political exigencies of schooling during a pandemic; and (6) sociocultural factors of teaching and learning. The findings of the study indicated the need for ongoing dialogue on teacher self-efficacy; professional learning opportunities on self-efficacy; burnout; the importance of self-care and wellness for teachers; resources for teachers to access social-emotional supports; and future research on the impact of teacher self-efficacy and the global pandemic.