Marisol Rayo, a Gilbert Elementary sixth-grader, said she stops in the Garden Grove school’s Wellness Center at least once a week.
She describes the “very open place” where she said she feels very welcome as having “clouds in the sky” and “calming music in the background.”
“You matter. Dream. Freedom. And, Results,” she reads off the posters that hang on the walls to encourage the students.
It’s been just over a year since schools within the Garden Grove Unified School District began opening Wellness Centers to ensure students “have a safe space on campus to focus on their mental health.” And one year in, about half of the schools have opened a center staffed with a counselor.
And even if there is no Wellness Center on a campus, there’s mental health counseling available through the district’s ASPIRE program, which was started to address the socio-emotional needs of students and staff.
In the current school year, ASPIRE is expected to serve more than 7,500 students with 60,000 hours of counseling. In comparison, in 2017, before the current effort to expand mental health services, the Garden Grove district only had one social worker and six interns serving four high-need schools.
The addition of the Wellness Centers is part of the district’s Choose Wellness campaign, launched in 2019 to increase and expand mental health awareness and support. Currently, the school district has 60 school psychologists, 22 school social workers, 30 mental health specialists and 44 mental health interns on staff.
The center at Gilbert, which launched last year, serves as a “space that’s safe for students to meet with a counselor or take a break,” said Marilyn Vu, a social worker with the ASPIRE program.
When students returned in-person to classrooms after the pandemic’s stay-at-home orders were lifted, many were struggling with anxiety, Vu said. “We provide that space where it’s encouraging and we help them transition.”
In addition…
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