The Wellness Room

Cranford Public School District Director of School Counseling Lisa Burnfeindt envisions school as a place where both students and teachers can grapple with issues faced in society today so they can be their best selves in the classroom. By creating a Wellness Room at Cranford High School, Ms Burnfeindt, in collaboration with Student Assistance Counselor, Tony Anthony, designed a space to promote and support mental health for all school community members. After touring similar spaces at peer schools for inspiration, Burnfeidt and Anthony crafted the ideal Wellness Room to serve the CHS community, and a grant from CFEE helped bring those dreams to life.

Created with District Strategic Plan goal statement number four in mind, to promote continuous improvement, awareness, and a culture of student safety and wellness, Burnfeindt and Anthony dreamed of a space to promote emotional self-regulation, to learn and adopt coping strategies, and embrace the District’s Full Value initiatives:

• Be Here: Be present in the Wellness Room
• Be Safe: Be careful with yourself, your well being, and each other’s well being
• Be Honest: Be honest with their feelings and themselves
• Set Goals: Self -regulation
• Care or Self and Others: Goal of room
• Let Go and Move On: 10-15 minutes to let go and move on

Burnfeindt believes emotional regulation is a key to learning readiness. In creating the Wellness Room, CHS provides a place for students to refocus and prepare to learn and engage with their teachers and classmates. Students across CHS have embraced the Wellness Room as a place to steady themselves throughout the school day. Students Matteo and Ella both identify the opportunity offered by the Wellness Room to step back from stress and overwhelm for a short period of time and recenter themselves. Fellow student Leah uses the many resources in the room to find a sense of calm before returning to class.

The Wellness Room has taken on new life in CHS, hosting a variety of programming like an art therapy program, a space for independent reading class sessions, and hosting Wags for Wellness, a therapy dog program. The CHS Wellness Room, through the generous support of CFEE, gives all students a place to focus and prepare themselves for the many challenges of today’s world.