Community
11 October, 2024
Girls learn importance of self-care
YOUNG girls within the shire got the opportunity to learn life skills and some hair and make-up tips last week through the Girl Power Intense sessions held on Thursday and Friday.
The sessions were a joint program with The Corner Therapy Hub and 12 Apostles Retreat, aiming to encourage girls to develop their resilience in an accepting environment.
The Corner Therapy Hub mental health social worker Sally Wood said the sessions went “really well”.
“This is our second group program – we did a girl program in May, and it’s been really lovely in terms of having a space where girls can connect and they can learn daily habits, essentially, that will help them thrive, make friendships, learn coping strategies to manage anxiety, better skills for making friends, and basically they’re able to do that over things they really like,” she said.
“They’re watching so much social media, and they’re online and engaging with each other through text.
“This is a way to move them off the phones and bring them into a space, bearing in mind that, when we are connected with people, we feel more fulfilled and happier overall.”
Girl Power focused on four areas, which formed the acronym GIRL:
Glam – this area allowed attendees to learn hair and make-up tips from experts in the field, allowing them to better look after their hair and skin;
Insight – this area focused on health, wellness and self-esteem, with girls engaging in group discussions and completing activities to learn how to maintain good health and wellbeing and self-esteem;
Resilience – this area focuses on emotional agility in conflict and developing inner strength, which was achieved through the incorporation of acceptance and commitment therapy into the program; and
Love – this area represents the importance of fostering positive friendships and relationships, with a safe environment provided for girls to learn new skills amongst like-minded girls.
Ms Wood said the Girl Power program was founded on the principles of acceptance and commitment therapy, which has a focus on mindfulness.
Acceptance and commitment therapy teaches people to accept - rather than avoid, deny or struggle with - their emotions and commit to making changes to their behaviours to help better respond in a variety of situations.
“It talks about how, often when daily struggles come about, we can really get fused with our thoughts and we can really begin to believe our thoughts,” Ms Wood said.
“The program teaches diffusion techniques and strategies such as mindfulness, cognitive distortions – bringing the girls’ attention to different types of thinking errors – and it shows them skills in fun ways, so they can unhook from a lot of the negative thoughts that they experience.
“The power of this group is we always come together with an opening circle and a closing circle, and we really talk about how everyone has a flame inside them – like a candle – and one candle burns bright, but when we put lots of candles together, it burns so much brighter.
“Essentially, it encourages girls to build each other up – it can be very easy to get caught into traps of negativity or paying out friends.”
Ms Wood said the program created a safe space, which allowed the girls to participate fully without fear of being teased.
“What we’re really bringing attention to in our space is a really safe space where you don’t have to worry about trying something and getting teased,” she said.
“It’s a space where we encourage girls, we build them up and we make them feel really fulfilled.
“They can make mistakes, and that’s completely fine, because it’s an unconditionally accepting environment.
“We also talk about when the candle begins to flicker – when things might happen, and that candle begins to dim a little – and we talk about how precious our flame and how we don’t want to blow out other people’s flames and the things we can do to strengthen them.”
Ms Wood ran the program alongside 12 Apostles Retreat’s Nora Bone, with both of them pleased with the response form attendees.
“They’ve loved the program,” Ms Wood said.
“We’ve had 100 per cent attendance rate for every single program.
“It’s just really lovely to see them come in – they can be quite nervous and quite anxious when they first come in, but when they leave they are chatty with each other.
“They seem happier, they seem lighter, they engage in the activities really enthusiastically, and it’s really lovely to hear some of them say in our closing circle that they’re sad that the group is over.”
A future session for girls has been planned for next month, which Ms Wood said will target a slightly higher age group.
“This group is for 12-15, and we’ll be running another program which is also based on acceptance and commitment therapy – that’s going to be going for six to eight weeks and that is a much more in-depth look at acceptance and commitment therapy,” she said.
“That will have the same group of girls coming – they will do different strategies, different techniques, and ultimately, they will produce a piece of art which we’ll display at the Courthouse.
“It will basically highlight issues young people are facing, and how they are able to get through the storms and weather those.”
Read More: local