This study investigated innovative teacher development programmes for effective engagement in the era of covid-19 in public secondary schools in Rivers State. The population of the study consisted of all the 290 public secondary schools in Rivers State with a population of 6,893 teachers in these schools. That is 5733 teachers and1160 HODs and 870 Principal, Vice Principals academic and administration. Therefore, the total was 776 teachers and management staff (i.e., 573 Teachers, 116 HODs and 87 Principals), representing 10% of the population was used as study participants. The multi stage sampling technique was employed. The instrument that was used for data collection a 12-item questionnaire titled: Innovative Teacher Development Programmes for Teachers’ Effective Engagement in the Era Of COVID-19 Questionnaire (ITDPTEEQ). The 4- points modified likert rating scale was used. Cronbach alpha statistics was used to obtain 0.86 reliability. Mean scores and standard deviation were used to answer the research questions while the z-test statistics was used to test the hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The result amongst others revealed that, teachers who have received professional development in the area of mental health are better able to maintain their own mental health and their students and when educators work to improve their own socio-emotional competencies, they are better able to assist their students learn to control their emotions in stressful situations. It was recommended that, Teachers who have mental health knowledge are should encouraged by school administrators and government through seminar programmes to rekindle their knowledge to stand in the gap to give first aid advice on academic effect of mental health difficulties to students and parent alike.