SCOTT COUNTY, Iowa — With the summer winds down, Scott County schools are welcoming students with a room where winding down is encouraged. The room is called the Brain Health Retreat Room and is a space where students can decompress during class time when their stress levels are high.
Sarah Harris is the Social Emotional and Behavioral Health Coordinator in the Bettendorf School District, and she said it's among the first schools in the Quad cities to get the room that's designed to provide a calming space for everyone.
"Yeah, the, the brain health retreat room is universal, so universally can be accessed by all students and all staff," Harris said. "It's a well-being space for everybody to come in, take a deep breath."
Bettendorf received an award to fund the room from Brain Health Now which also helped them design the space. It's connected to the student resources office where Shelley Hilton-Cullum works.
"We have kids that whether its anxiety or anger any emotions that they're being filled with it's hard for them to go to the classroom," Hilton-Cullum said.
When students are stressed, they can go to the room and take a few minutes to relax or even speak with student resource staff before returning to class.
Other schools, like North Scott Jr. High School, are also implementing similar rooms. They're calling their spaces therapeutic rooms.
North Scott Jr. High Director of Student Services Heather Shults said the influx of services for students in schools in the area, let alone the country, was a slow process.
"When I was going through school, these resources were not available," Shults said. "They used a very traditional method, in my opinion. If you were not regulated and you weren't able to maintain yourself in the general education setting, you were removed."
Shults said it's all about showing the students that schools are safe space.
"Anytime we can keep them in our buildings and have them see success and feel self-confident and have that self-esteem built up, it's fabulous," Shults said.
North Scott Jr. High school expects their therapeutic room to be completed by the end of fall. They received funding for their room from the Iowa Department of Education, where they got $175,000 for the spaces.