Broadening Perspectives
for everyone who cares
about mental health
and wellness in schools
We are the children of our landscape; it dictates behavior and even thought in the measure to which we are responsive to it." – Lawrence Durrell
Our environments profoundly affect our behavior. Kids spend the majority of their day at school. At The Wellness Classroom, we are working with our research team and grantees to discover how to transform school environments to make sure the students are well.
The Perils and Promise of Place
School and its spaces can be both a place of respite and a zone where the pressures of social dynamics or personal trauma are intensified, with lasting impacts on student mental health. But this broader context— of students' mental and physical life journeys at school —which plays a crucial role in shaping their emotional well-being, remains largely underutilized by current programming. As we spoke with both schools and program providers, we found that much of the focus is on “making things work” at an institutional level rather than a birds-eye-view approach of what is possible to improve the overall student experience.
The Wellness Classroom invests in programs that make schools more supportive, inclusive, and conducive to students' holistic well-being. Our work continues to ask how to foster environments where students feel they belong.
Systematic Solutions
Many who care about improving mental health in schools are addressing existing gaps rather than proactively creating new forms of value within the system. There are several valid reasons for this— including resource constraints, staff workloads, burnout, etc. Current mental health programs start with word-of-mouth referrals or through informal connections.
The Wellness Classroom is working to solve this problem by building a framework and toolkit to systemize matching, integration, and success between program providers and schools.
Success is aligning school culture with program goals, ensuring that the focus remains on creating meaningful, lasting impact for students.
Mental Health programming is important, but an inclusive and supportive school culture, where emotional well-being is embedded can take us further.