Dr. Cheryl Dellasega

Rhonda Scott found herself attending a new school in the seventh grade. Instead of making new friends, she found herself confronted by a girl who kept calling her names.

"I didn't know what to do," she remembers. Then, one of the house mothers at the school, the residential Milton S. Hershey School, suggested she try Club Ophelia, a program that aims to reduce bullying among middle school girls using mentoring and an arts-based curriculum.

Rhonda participated in the club and liked it so much she enrolled again this past year as an eighth grader. And when she found herself back at school facing a girl who was picking on her and spreading rumors about her, she knew exactly what to do.

"Instead of instigating a fight, I tried to talk to her," Rhonda said. "At first she was surprised, and then we talked for a long time. Now we say hello when we see each other in the halls."

Counselors and teachers are successful in attracting girls to Club Ophelia because it provides an environment where they can learn how to develop friendships, explained its creator, winner of the University's Faculty Outreach Award Dr. Cheryl Dellasega, associate professor of humanities and chair of the Arts, Healing and Humanities Committee in the Penn State College of Medicine at the Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center.

"Every girl is concerned about making friends," Dellasega said.

An arts-based curriculum boosts self-esteem among these middle school girls. Photos courtesy of Dr. Cheryl Dellasega

A Girl's Life
And Dellasega, who is a certified registered nurse practitioner with a Ph.D. in health education, has made these girls a concern of hers. Combining her clinical training and academic background with her artistic ability, she applies the arts and healing to individuals, organizations and communities, with a particular emphasis on teenage girls and their families.

In addition to the club, a more intensive five-day camp—held annually at the Harrisburg Area Community College (HACC) and offered free of charge with support from HACC, Dauphin County RADAR Network Center, Family and Children's Services of Dauphin County and Family Health Council—also offers girls of diverse backgrounds ways to improve self-esteem, as well as alternatives to bullying, known as relational aggression.

Relational aggression is a common theme in Dellasega's work. The club and camp evolved out of a committee she created to identify programs that could address the issue. The Surviving Ophelia committee, comprised of a diverse group of community members from throughout central Pennsylvania, offered a workshop on the subject in the fall of 2001 at the Harrisburg YWCA for educators and leaders of community programs.

Now, another school district in Pennsylvania, Elizabethtown, is starting to host the club, and Dellasega has started to train others so the programs can be offered throughout Pennsylvania and beyond.

Participants of Club Ophelia make a collage of positive messages.

Grown Women Learn Life Skills
At the prison from 1998 to 2001, Dellasega taught life skills, such as stress management, communication and writing to the women. She also coordinated an arts-based activity for mothers and children in the Woodside Family Center at the prison in order to promote positive visiting experiences.

"It was evident that she was aware of and sensitive to the needs of this marginalized population and effectively interacted with them," said Dr. Irene C. Baird, who as director of Penn State Harrisburg Women's Enrichment Center facilitates programs for women at the jail. "Not only did she ‘sell herself' well, but she also represented the University well in reaching out to one of the most silenced, invisible populations in our city."

Dellasega would also sometimes bring to the mother-daughter sessions at the Woodside Family Center her own daughter, who as a teenager was having a difficult time with adolescence.

"I think [the activities] did make her feel better about herself," Dellasega said.

Dellasega has written two guide-books for parents about the needs of adolescent girls: Surviving Ophelia: Mothers Share Their Wisdom of the Tumultuous Teenage Years (Perseus & Ballentine, 2002) and Girl Wars: Twelve Tried and True Strategies for Ending Female Bullying (Simon & Schuster, 2003). (Her third book, Stung! Helping Adult Women Who Are Queen Bees, Middle Bees, and Afraid-to-Bees, published by John Wiley Inc., is due this year and addresses whether adult women treat each other as they did when they were adolescents.)

The books are highly acclaimed, and her scholarship on the subject of relational aggression has garnered state and national media attention, including a national radio tour and an appearance on NBC's The Today Show.

Dellasega often receives e-mails from appreciative readers of her books, including one note that said she literally "saved" a girl's life. Such feedback from people is gratifying for Dellasega who, as part of the University, feels compelled to do outreach work.

"We are privileged at the University to have special expertise and resources to benefit people in the community," Dellasega said. "Outreach is a bridge between the University and the community."

And Dellasega has plenty of expertise and resources in her own right to share. "I bring together my artistic talents with the ability to connect with a lot of different people," she said. "It's a way to get things done."