Jillian Fortney (proper), a Berkeley Springs Excessive Faculty junior, and different highschool dance workforce members paint the brand new dance room at the highschool as a part of Fortney’s Lady Scout Gold Award “Shifting for Teen Psychological Well being” venture. Photograph by Holli McCumbee
by Kate Evans
Jillian Fortney, Berkeley Springs Excessive Faculty junior, has created a dance and centered motion room at Berkeley Springs Excessive Faculty for her Lady Scout Gold Award “Shifting for Teen Psychological Well being” venture. Fortney can also be spreading details about teen psychological well being and methods for teenagers to deal with anxiousness, stress and melancholy.
A Lady Scout Gold Award is the equal of a Boy Scout Eagle Scout venture. Fortney has been a Lady Scout for 12 years.
Fortney has additionally been a dancer for 11 years and has been taking dance at Berkeley Springs Excessive Faculty with highschool dance trainer Holli McCumbee for 3 years. Fortney and the highschool dance workforce raised just below $8,000 for the dance room by way of a Shade Stroll at Cacapon State Park this summer time, making and promoting t-shirts and donations from native organizations.
The entire cash goes for the dance room-for flooring, paint, barres, mirrors and different dance and motion tools that McCumbee wants, Fortney stated. The Lions Membership is paying for the barres and the mirrors are being put in subsequent week.
The highschool dance workforce painted the dance room and Fortney, McCumbee, Fortney’s mother, dad and grandmother and Kelly Smith put down the brand new Harlequin vinyl flooring for the dance flooring.
Motion as stability
Fortney stated that she has a recognized anxiousness dysfunction and that centered motion and move are her largest shops. She dances, runs for observe, reads and does Yoga and portray as types of move.
Fortney additionally paints individuals’s footwear as a part of her Instagram small enterprise Joggers by Jillian.
These actions assist Fortney together with her panic assaults and stress ranges and stability her temper, she stated. She at all times feels very calm and joyful afterwards. Targeted motion is often known as move and is being utterly immersed in your actions and at peace, Fortney stated throughout a presentation to the college board about her work.
Psychological well being statistics
Highschool college students with psychological well being points are greater than twice as prone to drop out of college.
“Untreated psychological well being issues can disrupt sleep, power ranges, focus, pursuits and might total make it troublesome to operate usually,” Fortney stated.
“Teenagers who’ve larger psychological and emotional well being have higher bodily well being, fewer relationship issues and are much less prone to abuse substances as adults,” she stated.
The vast majority of psychological well being challenges emerge through the teen years, Fortney stated. One in 5 U.S. teenagers between ages 12 and 18 undergo from no less than one type of a psychological well being dysfunction. Over 2.5 million youth in America have extreme main melancholy.
Fortney stated she is enthusiastic about dance and motion.
“I imagine that dance, artwork and motion are for everybody. This room will give so many college students the chance to bounce and transfer in a secure and well-equipped room whereas additionally giving them the instruments to enhance their psychological well being,” Fortney added.
Berkeley Springs Excessive Faculty affords many extracurricular actions that embody dance, choir, band and humanities together with many sports activities and golf equipment. Fortney stated she wished to share together with her friends what had labored for her in coping with her anxiousness and to interrupt down the stigma of psychological well being issues.
Dance program
Holli McCumbee is in her 18th 12 months of instructing dance at Berkeley Springs Excessive Faculty. She teaches mutiple ranges of dance together with well being and driver’s security schooling. McCumbee has 42 dance college students this 12 months.
The primary degree class lets college students check out many types of dance equivalent to jazz, ballet, faucet, ballroom, swing, line dancing, hip hop and modern dance, McCumbee stated.
Greater ranges of dance class let college students pursue unbiased examine in a style of dance by which they’re .
McCumbee was thrilled when she obtained her personal room for dance and motion instruction final 12 months after sharing a room with wrestling for a few years. She is so appreciative of Fortney’s venture. McCumbee stated it’s going to develop their dance division a lot and is a dream come true.
McCumbee hopes to rearrange dance courses and motion workshops with neighborhood instructors in Yoga, Zumba, Tai Chi and hula hooping. She needs to buy just a few tumbling mats for acrobatics and acro-dance, a brand new dance style.
“Youngsters like it,” McCumbee stated.
Fortney will obtain her Lady Scout Gold Award for her venture in just a few weeks after the dance room mirrors are put in and he or she turns in her remaining report. Fortney stated she’s excited that dance and psychological well being are being shared all through our neighborhood and can proceed.
Faculty board vp Pete Gordon stated he was grateful for Fortney’s neighborhood service venture and her efforts to offer again to the neighborhood. Faculty board member John Rowland stated that Fortney’s teen psychological well being statistics had been compelling.
Fortney is a good function mannequin for college kids, stated Faculty Superintendent Kristen Tuttle.
