Sara Wengert

Sara has devoted her career to improving the lives of our society’s most vulnerable individuals. As a leader in our mental health design practice, she connects with people to instill trust and confidence as she guides them through the programming, planning, design, and construction process of a wide range of mental health environments. Sara leads our perennial Statewide Campus Planning assignment with the New York State Office of Mental Health (NYS-OMH), providing the State with planning services for eleven facilities across New York State. With a strong commitment to fostering healing and recovery environments, Sara leads our Patient Safety Team to research and test products for use in high-risk environments. In collaboration with NYS-OMH, this team publishes the Patient Safety Standards, Materials, and Systems Guidelines, a resource referenced and utilized throughout North America.

Sara has contributed to the Health Guides Revisions Committee as a topic group member, playing a key role in revising and updating the FGI (Facility Guidelines Institute) Guidelines for Design and Construction of Hospitals, with a particular focus on behavioral health crisis units. She is a member of The Center for Health Design’s Behavioral and Mental Health Environments Network in which she collaborates with peers, consistently expanding her understanding of the challenges that mental healthcare providers face, and honing her problem-solving skills for the benefit of her clients.