Mental Well-Being

A 3rd grader at Central Academy of the Arts sat down at her art board this year and drew a circle. She filled it with her life: hard, beautiful, unique, sad, happy. Then she gave the picture to her mom for Christmas.

She is one of 24 students who spent the past school year in expressive arts therapy at her school. Their lives are heavier than most kids' should be: a parent lost, a parent missing, a household in crisis, a grief no nine-year-old has the words for. Once a week, they sit down with Mr. Dale, and they find a way to begin.

Healthy children become healthy adults

Mental Well-Being is one of four Impact Areas United Way of Pickens County is committed to, with a focus on children's mental health and healthy development. When kids get the emotional support they need to navigate hard things, they show up stronger in the classroom, in their families, and in their friendships. They build the resilience that carries into adulthood.

Stigma, cost, and a shortage of mental health providers in our community make that support hard to reach for many Pickens County families. Children who need help often do not get it. United Way and our community partners are working to change that.

Children with strong mental well-being focus and participate in school, build resilience, navigate challenges, strengthen friendships, and develop confidence and a positive sense of self. They are also far less likely to face depression, anxiety, substance misuse, or chronic stress-related health problems as adults.

Investing in Healing

Through the volunteer-driven Mental Health Services Impact Council, United Way funds local programs delivering high-quality mental health support to children in Pickens County. Council members review grant applications from community organizations and direct funding to the programs with the greatest potential to change a child's life.

Expressive Arts Therapy at Central Academy of the Arts

Each week at Central Academy, 24 students in grades 2 through 5 leave their classroom for thirty minutes and walk into a different kind of room. There, expressive arts therapist Dr. Dale Savidge meets them with art supplies, drama exercises, and the kind of patience that lets a child say what they are not yet ready to say out loud.

The students come in small groups built around what they are carrying: grief, anger, social anxiety, missing parents, family separation, the weight of poverty. Some attend for eight weeks. Some for twenty.

By the end of the school year, every student in the program said expressive arts therapy helped them feel less worried or upset. Every student said they could work well with others. Every one of them said the room with Mr. Dale was a place where they felt happy and calm.

A teacher described what she watched happen this year:

"This is the one thing some of our students look forward to more than anything else. It's been life-changing."

A student put it more simply:

"Thank you so much with helping me solve my problems, Mr. Dale. You're a real-life saver."

Reaching more children, more schools.

The work happening at Central Academy is changing children's lives. We want more children in Pickens County to have access to it.

This summer, United Way is funding a six-hour expressive arts therapy training for school counselors from across the county. They will learn how the principles of expressive arts therapy can strengthen their everyday work with students, practice the methods alongside other counselors, and leave with a collection of art therapy materials and step-by-step instructions they can put to use the day school starts.

A trained counselor with a new tool in their kit can help a child in a hard moment. That matters. We are grateful for every counselor walking into this training.

But what Dale does at Central Academy is something different. He sees the same students every week, all school year long, in small groups built around what each child is carrying. The relationship deepens. The healing builds. A grief that arrives in September is not the same grief by May, because someone has been sitting with that child the whole way through.

That kind of care is what we want for children in every school in Pickens County. Reaching that goal means funding more therapists like Dale, in more buildings, one day a week, all year.

Children in Pickens County need this work. If you want to help bring it to more of them, your gift moves it forward.