Mental health break out room

[AwesomeSauce4]

If your child's school had a break out room, where children could go if they were suffering from mental health difficulties, what would you like to see in there?

Lots of schools have pets.
Pets are incredibly soothing for some children.
Obviously they would need to be supervised.

The staff is much more important than the space. Don’t spend £30k on something the school then can’t use because there’s no one available to supervise the children.

I'd want books books books, and bean bags to curl up on :-)

Small pets are likely to find a mental health room (where there will inevitably be distress, meltdowns, etc) very stressful. They can't choose where they are kept; it's on us as humans go make kind and responsible choices. Imagine if a child hit the cage by accident, sent it flying, and the pet died? Horribly sad for the child, and a totally avoidable death for the pet.

Tl;dr, it's one of those things that sounds super cute but wouldn't actually work well in real life.

The option for no artificial light, no bright colours, no million and posters and books and things to offend the eye, and space for more than one child so it isn't monopolised by the one who makes a beeline for it as soon as they walk in through the gate. And no magnolia or toothpaste/institutional colour walls.

Some natural daylight and plants would be nice, too.

Plants. And trained staff.

Also is this an “emergency room” or somewhere to be used as alternative to a busy playground on lunch break. Very different purposes.

Neurodiverse children will have likely have different needs to a child suffering abuse/ parental divorce/ bereavement/ generalised anxiety etc.

If only one space then soothing, calm, no fluorescent light, plants, unstimulating but with toys or spinners available from staff for those who need them.

Definitely not a punching bag!

IMO an emergency room shouldn’t be a blissful escape so much as a safe place to pause and calm emotions to then allow work on what’s going on inside the brain with feelings/ emotions and reactions and how to manage stressful situations or to experience difficult emotions without becoming overwhelmed. Mental health distress is traumatic so any interventions need to be properly therapeutic not merely distracting and “nicer” than being in class.

I agree that talking and chatting to other children wouldn’t allow it to be a properly therapeutic/learning experience.

Colouring and play dough. Soothing, creative, constructive

I agree with November also nothing that can be picked up and thrown.

I think you have a very idealistic view on the sort of students that will use this room, there is a difference between a hang out space and a mental health room. However both need to be staffed, and we don't have enough staff to run the essentials at the moment.

We’ve got one in my school, it’s staffed by 3 full time professionals with mental health and safeguarding training.

You can’t just set up this room without the correct staff.

We do bag checks of those going in, and for each bag check you need 2 adults one to check and one to observe.

In the room: knitting, mindful colouring , headphones for music, fidget toys, plants, a desk of kids want to do their work, mindfulness books, magazines, soft textured cushions, probs way more.

the key thing is staff; so your 30k may employ one person for a year…!

DD's had a kettle, teabags, fridge with milk, tables to work at and a support worker who still keeps in touch 5 years later and she is at university. What age are you aiming at?

A lot of schools have breakout spaces and manage them without anything being nicked or anything. I think it does depend on the school though and also big difference depending on ages, all different on staff ratios and level of supervision so I would definitely do some research and also make sure your following all the legislation.

I love breakout spaces. Personally I don't care half as much about academia as mental well being. If it's a choice between grades and self esteem I will always choose the later (of course ideally both!)

Breakout spaces are so important for kids who struggle with sensory overload. And that includes most kids with ADHD, who would often find it incredibly difficult to not talk due to impulse control issues. With kids with tics, it's not just that they would struggle to self sensor it's that rhyme actually wouldn't be able to. So I think banning talking wouldn't work at all as it actually stops the kids who need it the most using it. Some noise defending headphones would be great for those who do want some silence and lack of noise stimulation though!

Fidget toys and things are great, as is being able to listen to music, but also for a lot of kids reading a book, doing some colouring or word searches, or playing a card game or doing a jigsaw can be a welcome distraction and way of calming down from dis-regulation and sensory overload. So I would overlook having some of those kinds of options which can be very affordable and effective

No talking? Because talking is so bad for mental health? Sounds more like a punishment room

The no talking would be odd.

But yes I’m afraid these places do get abused - especially at secondary where they’re often used as a great place to skive.

£30k is a hell of a lot of money! Have you spoken to the school?