Two new wellness centers for student mental health are set to open next week, coming to the Harbor High School and Soquel High School campuses.
The centers are part of a plan to bring wellness centers to eight schools across the county to help combat what local educators describe as a mental health crisis among teenagers that began before the pandemic but has grown more acute as COVID-era funding for mental health services has dried up across the state.
According to county data, more than a quarter of local public school students reported feeling sad every day over the past year, with even higher rates among LGBTQ+ youth.
The wellness centers are spaces where students can connect with the schools’ social emotional counselors or simply de-stress and decompress. They will be staffed by wellness navigators, who are trained to help guide students to needed resources. The centers offer support for mental health, sexual health, substance abuse and more.
“Even before COVID, we were seeing a significant rise in issues like anxiety and depression amongst teenagers,” Santa Cruz City Schools Superintendent Kris Munro wrote in a news release. “Making a physical space to offer easy access to not only our in-house supports, but the resources of all of our partner organizations across the county, simplifies the process anyone has to go through to get help.”
The Soquel High wellness center will open at 1:30 p.m. on Tuesday. A ribbon-cutting will mark Harbor High’s wellness center’s opening at 2:30 p.m. on Wednesday. Scotts Valley High opened its wellness center in January, and Santa Cruz High’s center is aiming for a 2026 opening.
Santa Cruz Student Services Director Casey O’Brien described Soquel High’s temporary wellness center, which opened last fall, as a huge success with students. “The response we have seen has been really incredible,” O’Brien wrote in a news release. “Students have been utilizing the resource very well, and it has streamlined the process of connecting students with whatever help they need.”
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