We are so pleased to announce our newest initiative!

STOMP Out Bullying has always been a proud advocate for mental health, especially by highlighting Mental Health Awareness Month each May. As we all know, self-care is of the utmost importance year-round. We all have our ways to help us stay grounded and present when times get challenging or stressful. We all need safe spaces to decompress or regulate feelings and emotions, especially our youth. Students may have other outlets to decompress outside of school or at home, but what about a safe space to retreat within the school? It is with this question in mind that we established donating Wellness Rooms to schools 5^th grades to 12th grades.

What is a Wellness Room?

A Wellness Room is a location at a school to help promote a safe and semi-private space for relaxation, stress relief, emotional regulation, and tending to personal needs. It is best visualized as a lounge equipped with relaxing tools and furniture to help ground and ease the stressful day. It is for those students who are in distress due to bullying or experiencing mental health struggles.

FAQs about our Wellness Rooms:

Why should schools have wellness rooms? 

It is important to encourage students to know they have a safe space to decompress during the day. Wellness rooms have been found to decrease stress and increase productivity, in multiple different settings, ensuring that it would be a great fit for your school! The idea behind them is to allow a space to recharge and reset to continue to be productive throughout the day. We all need space sometimes, so let’s not forget our youths need it too!

What happens when I sign up for a Wellness Room?

After your application is submitted, the application is vetted and processed. Based on the parameters provided, we can decide whether a Wellness Room is best suited for your environment. If you have been chosen for a Wellness Room, we will be in contact with you to finalize details. With our Wellness Rooms, materials, and furniture will be donated by STOMP Out Bullying to utilize for the youth in your schools, at no cost to the school! We will design and gather materials to best aid your students based on the space provided, therefore, there is no harm in trying to apply!

Are there any requirements or things to consider before submission?

We understand that you want to provide this support for your students. Here are a few things that you should consider before signing up to help move your application forward:

• This room must have a dedicated staff member that is monitoring the room, and responsible for the students inside at all times while it is available. Please have a staff member in mind and write the name of the staff and title member on the application in order for your application to be properly assessed.
• This room should be at least 250 sq ft. This is a requirement for the furniture that will be provided to you.
• STOMP Out Bullying will provide some materials, decor, and furniture; however, it is up to the school to provide any other materials after the initial setup of the room. We’re happy to give you a head start.
• Prepare to attach a proposal that answers the following questions to show how available this resource would be to your students.

The room should be available during the entirety of the school day with no other curriculums or programming.  It’s up to the school administration to decide how long a student in distress can take advantage of the Wellness Room to decompress.

When Can Students Use the Wellness Room?
Would you consider a new policy in which students can request a time to go to the Wellness Room, perhaps during a class, if needed? Something like this could require discussions with your administrators and teachers, but there may be instances where a student may need the space during a class. You can consider having something like a hall or bathroom pass for teachers, where students can discreetly request to use the room for a certain portion of the class. You may also elaborate on this to be a physical pass or have a note that the student needs to provide to the staff member monitoring the room, and if not presented to the staff member, they may be able to check the student's schedule and notify the teacher that they are requesting to use the room. 

Will you have a sign-up for them to request the space, and if so what system will you use? This would likely be ideal for larger school setups with a larger volume of students that may not all fit in the space. You may consider either a physical or online sign-up for the moderator to manage. Perhaps, when students request the space, they can request it for an allotted amount of time to avoid potential crowding. The room is to be an area of peace, and overcrowding the space may lead to unnecessary stress in the safe space, as well as materials not being able to be used if there are too many students at once. You should consider, based on the size of the room you wish to use, a capacity for the number of students at a time. Students should be able to access and see when the room is available to them and if the room has reached capacity for that period or time slot. In addition to requesting the room for a time slot, there should be a system in place that monitors the frequency of attending the space. This is to ensure that the space is not being abused and taken up by repeated persons, therefore, not allowing space for others to use it. For example, you may wish to implement a policy that limits students to requesting the space 1-2x a week for 20 minutes or whichever works best with your school schedule and the volume of students. In addition, you may wish for the monitoring staff member to flag any repeated sign-ups outside of that threshold that you set and speak to the student to potentially gauge if they need further assistance or counseling.

How would this room benefit your specific school and students? If  a student has been severely bullied or dealing with mental health issue, it is obvious they need to decompress. Identify those students and let them know the Wellness Room is available to them when they need to decompress

Wellness Room to-do list:

• Speak to administrators and staff about how this could work in your school. Discuss details in full.
• Nominate a staff member to draft a proposal and complete the application.
• Photograph the room you intend to use as a wellness room. A photo of the room must be included in the proposal (REQUIRED).
• Once drafted, submit the proposal and the rest of the application below to us!
• Please wait for us to read and process your application. Unfortunately, due to the number of applications we receive, we cannot respond to everyone. If you are selected, you will be contacted by a STOMP Out Bullying® Representative. U.S. Students only.
• If you do not have a teacher or administrator to supervise the room, you may want to consider placing a student teacher or a person who is studying social work or psychology at college or a university.
• If you are contacted, we will discuss steps to move forward.

STOMP Out Bullying Wellness Room Application

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