Welcoming visitors to the Wellness Center at Rubidoux High School is a group of students eating their school lunch, excitedly waiting for the next card to be called in their third round of Millenial Lotería. As sounds of pop music play faintly in the background, students enjoy a game of Jenga, while others play a classic game of Connect 4 and catch up. The Wellness Center is full of students enjoying their school’s new space meant to target their well-being and mental health.
“Wellness Wednesdays is a place where you can get away from anything that’s stressing you out and bothering you,” said Litzy Plascencia, RHS senior and Wellness Wednesday attendee, about the new weekly program offered by the Wellness Center. Surrounded by positive messages and various posters depicting grounding techniques on the walls, students are happy to spend their lunch with their school’s mental health professionals in a calming environment.
Every week the Wellness Center’s peer specialist, outreach worker, and behavioral health specialist facilitate Wellness Wednesdays with the intention that students will come in and decompress with them during their lunchtime. Students are welcome to hang out on a fur bean bag chair, play board games, or work on puzzles. With the goal to create a safe space on campus, the center staff uses these tools to encourage students to talk to one another, distract them from their classes, and be free within the walls of the center.
New to the Rubidoux campus, the Wellness Center is designed to prioritize and deal with students’ mental health and help meet their basic needs. The center gives both students and staff access to mental health professionals, a community closet, resources, and a community for support.
“It’s important for Rubidoux to have a peer specialist and these programs on campus because it shows students that there’s always an individual that can help them out through anything that they’re going through,” said Melody Diaz, peer specialist. Ms. Diaz, being around the students’ age, can guide them as a reliable peer in different ways than adult teachers on campus can. The school’s efforts in improving the student experience are being noticed by students, like Litzy. “It lets students know that the school really does care about [our] well-being.”
“Wellness Wednesdays came from the need to have a safe space for our students to be. A place where they can come together or alone and find a community,” said Delia Toscano, Community Schools Teacher on Special Assignment. She wants students to have a place where, “they’re going to be found with open arms, where they can find activities, things that they can enjoy, destress and meet new people.”
Instead of dealing with their stress or personal battles on their own, they can now visit the Wellness Center for support, Ms. Diaz made clear. Creating a culture of wellness on campus will in turn give students the ability to focus on their academics and social lives in a healthier way.
The Rubidoux community can expect to see new resources and programs becoming available as the Wellness Center expands. They will have access to onsite laundry machines and wellness toolkits to help cope with life’s stressors. With
recent grant funding that includes $3 million in federal dollars to JUSD and two other Riverside County school districts for mental health programs, programs such as the Wellness Center flourish to meet student needs within the district.
