Dos Pueblos High School opened the Wellness Center, an on-campus mental health resource, just before the start of term two. This project has been in the works since last fall; however, due to a lack of funding, barriers presented with the amount of time required for renovations, and complications during the hiring process of mental health professionals, the Wellness Center could not open until this school year.

Dean of Student Engagement Bethany Bodenhamer explained that the center is currently in its “soft opening stage,” but is projected to be fully opened with the start of the second semester.

“My vision … [is that] we’re going to do a grand opening in January, probably [in the] second or third week,” Bodenhamer said. “We intentionally decided not to do it now because of holidays – after school and evenings are just so busy right now for everybody. So, we decided, when we all come back from winter break, we’ll do a big grand opening.”

Bodenhamer highlighted how the funding issue was overcome mainly due to the support of the Dos Pueblos High School Foundation.

“I’m working with the DP Foundation … which is a committee of parents and community members who have really helped the funding of this center,” Bodenhamer said. “They’re the ones that actually have raised the money … to pay for the person in there for the first two years, and then they also helped pay for all of the furnishings.”

As the center is still in its “soft-opening” phase, not all of its resources are available to the student body of DPHS.

“It’s not fully open for students yet because the real vision is students can self-refer, drop in, receive one-on-one … immediate support,” Bodenhamer said. “We are currently hiring for that position.”

However, groups like the DPHS’s Wellness Connection club and the AHA Ally Group are currently utilizing the space as a place to hold their respective meetings on Wednesdays during lunch and Tuesdays after school. The groups are then able to discuss their monthly campaigns and talk about ways in which they can promote mental health on DPHS’s campus.

“The Wellness Connection Club works very closely with Ms. Bodenhamer in our campaigns,” said Wellness Connection Club President Nicole Barger (12).

Bodenhamer explained how Barger has been “fundamental” in the creation and development of the Wellness Center. Barger, as well as other students in the Wellness Club, collaborated with Bodenhamer during this process.

“Last year with the startup of the Wellness Center, … [Ms. Bodenhamer] was still getting feedback from students about what students wanted to see in the Wellness Center and how they wanted the space to be used, so we helped and collaborated with her in getting feedback from the student body so that it can best serve students,” Barger said.

Bodenhamer said that with the grand opening of the Wellness Center, other students have expressed a desire in helping out with the center. One of these students is Gabrielle Terzian (11), who works with Youth Well, one of the organizations that has put their resources into the Wellness Center.

“I’ll be helping make posters and get awareness out about it, as well as [giving] any kind of support they need,” Terzian said.

Both Barger and Terzian highlighted how mental health is a subject that is often “hard” for students to speak out about, especially while struggling, which was why they felt that the creation of the Wellness Center was very important.

“I feel like a lot of students have a hard time coming forward when they have struggles with mental health, and it’s also really hard to know where to go when you have struggles,” Terzian said. “I mean, you can go to your counselor, but … that’s not what they are known for. They do academic resources, [but] aren’t as trained for the mental health resources.”

Bodenhamer said students who have any “ideas or desires” for the Wellness Center should reach out to her via this form.

“At the end of the day, this … Wellness Center, it’s not for me, it’s not for the staff, it’s really for students,” Bodenhamer said. “And it came out of years [of] students telling me, like, ‘We don’t know what mental health resources exist’… and so that’s my goal with that place, … and I hope that if there are specific things that … the students want, that they’ll let me know that so we can make it happen.”