Marissa Copeland, 17, has had a close-knit group of friends who share a special bond: They have been in Girl Scouts together since the sixth grade. “We’ve stayed together and become really good friends. We all worked on our Silver Awards together.”
The silver honor is the second highest level of achievement a Girl Scout can reach. But Copeland isn’t stopping there. Her support group has cheered her toward going for the Gold Award, a distinction held by only 6% of scouts in the ninth to 12th grades. One of the crucial elements of the designation is the creation and implementation of a community-based program.
Copeland, a Smyrna resident who will be a senior in Campbell High’s International Baccalaureate program this fall, designed a program that addresses student anxiety.
“It has to be a service project that addresses an issue in your community and in the country,” she said. “It usually takes one to two years and requires a minimum of 80 hours. I’ve already gone well over that.”
Copeland drew on personal experience and extensive research to design and teach coping strategies in her “Be Aware…Be There” program.
“I’ve had anxiety my entire life, and it was heightened in middle and high school,” Copeland said. “Now I’m older and realize I can teach schoolers who get the same anxieties I had how to cope and let them know they’re not alone. So many people are struggling. I’ve even found many of my friends do, too.”
Copeland’s program debuted last fall at the Lindley Sixth Grade Academy in Mableton. She made videos and designed a lesson plan for the school’s counselors to implement.
“I knew I couldn’t facilitate it myself, but the counselors did,” she said. “I also knew that Lindley is a Title I school and wouldn’t have as many resources for mental health support, so that’s why I implemented a group there.”
This spring, Copeland presented a workshop on teen anxiety at the Smyrna public library and to eighth graders at Smyrna’s St. Benedict’s Episcopal school. She also shared information with fellow students in the IB program.
“IB is rigorous and anxiety inducing,” she said. “I wanted to educate the freshmen and sophomores on how to cope with what they might be experiencing.”
The feedback she’s received has been positive.
“People have said they didn’t know how to cope, and because of my workshop, they could figure out how to deal with what they were feeling,” she said.
Copeland also created a website to keep the program going after she earns the Gold Award and takes her next educational step.
“Since seventh grade when we did a project on biology careers, I knew exactly what I wanted to do,” she said. “I want to stay in Georgia and go into pharmacology.”
Information about “Be Aware…Be There” is online at anxietymentorshipp.wixsite.com/teenanxiety.
Who’s doing good? Each week, we write about a deserving individual, charity events such as fun-runs, volunteer projects and other community gatherings that benefit a good cause. To suggest an event or person for us to cover, contact us at ajc.doinggood@gmail.com.
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