SOUTH KINGSTOWN, RI — A lady scout from South Kingstown has earned the Gold Award, the best honor in Woman Scouting, for her mission addressing stigmas involving psychological well being.
Alyssa Hiener acquired the award after finishing her mission “Labyrinth and Psychological Well being Curriculum.” The mission supplies coping expertise to teenagers dwelling with psychological sickness.
As a scholar at South Kingstown Excessive Faculty, Hiener mentioned she watched a lot of her mates and friends wrestle with psychological well being problems, together with herself. She mentioned one in 5 youngsters reside with at the least one psychological well being dysfunction.
In keeping with a survey carried out by SurveyWorks, half of all Rhode Island public highschool college students mentioned that they’re very confused. About 70 p.c of scholars mentioned they virtually all the time fear about their grades in class.
Given the survey outcomes, Hiener’s mission goals to create a extra peaceable setting at college
“The Labyrinth and Psychological Well being Curriculum” will scale back psychological well being stigma by educating college students and instructing them the reality about psychological well being whereas offering them with helpful ideas and coping expertise.
“This mission was essential to me as a result of I’ve lived with recognized psychological sickness since center faculty, and I all the time hoped that I might have the chance to be taught extra about them in class,” Hiener mentioned. “I used to be upset on the lack of psychological well being schooling supplied in faculties and wished to make sure college students have been getting the required psychological well being schooling. I additionally wished to work in the direction of erasing the stigma of psychological well being, particularly in youth.”
A labyrinth is a method used for strolling meditation. It’s a single, winding path from the periphery in a circuitous solution to the middle. Labyrinths are used world-wide to quiet the thoughts, calm anxieties, recuperate stability in life, improve creativity and encourage meditation, perception, self-reflection, and stress discount.
Hiener created finger labyrinths, that are an simply transportable labyrinth which might be simply as efficient as a walkable labyrinth. Alyssa burned 4 finger labyrinths into picket blocks and printed 24 labyrinths that have been laminated and labeled.
Every might be used throughout the curriculum and positioned across the faculty within the steering workplace and the scholar help counselor’s workplace. By tracing a finger labyrinth and studying extra about psychological well being problems, college students will be taught in a extra peaceable setting and develop into extra educated about enhancing their very own psychological well being, Hiener mentioned.
“So many occasions, I’ve tried speaking to an grownup about my psychological sickness, and so they have responded with ‘you are too younger’ or ‘you are not mentally ailing, you are not loopy,'” Hiener mentioned. “I need youth to really feel that they will discuss how they’re feeling and never really feel judged or unsupported. Making a psychological well being curriculum helped to erase that stigma via schooling and provides college students the chance to really discuss what they’re going via.”