This winter, the Lewiston High School staff introduced a new feature to the school website, the Virtual Calming Room. Shannon Van Buren, the head librarian, created it as a safe space for students and others to take needed breaks.
Van Buren said the idea came from a course she took in college, and saw that they were growing during COVID shut-downs.
“They had created these virtual calming rooms to allow students to have a place to go for many different reasons,” she said. “I just thought that was really great”.
According to an article by the National Education Association, calming rooms should be part of every school. The article discusses the advantages of having such rooms.
“Providing a place to calm down and learn self-regulation strategies averts future outbursts and gets student[s] back in the classroom ASAP.” states the article.
Van Buren began developing the LHS calming room just before the beginning of the school year when she began considering including it on the school website.
This webpage attempts to uplift and de-stress users while implementing healthy coping mechanisms. The LHS Virtual Calming Room has a menu containing multiple spaces to browse, sending you to your desired location or activity.
The home page has six displayed spaces: ASMR, Coloring and Drawing, Interactive Mind, Journaling, Meditation, and Motion and Movement. Depending on what you click on, you’ll be met with different links related to the section. For example, if you click on coloring & drawing, you will be met with links to printable coloring pages, online color by numbers, and more.
“The one menu page that I’m most proud of is the resources and the support,” shared Van Buren. “I really did a lot of research to figure out quick ways for students who need counseling support, or someone to talk to.”.
The Resources and Support page includes multiple hotlines, numbers, and organizations for people to have easy access to.
The calming room is located on the homepage of the Lewiston High School website, making it easily accessible to students, staff members, and anyone who desires a break.
https://sites.google.com/students.lewistonschools.net/lewiston-high-school-vcr/home
