Willow Creek Staff Help Girl Scouts ‘Explore The Magic Of Motion’

Occupational Therapist Nicole Ward, right, shows Alexandra Skurka the controls on a powered wheelchair.

A group of township Girl Scouts visited the Willow Creek Rehabilitation and Care Center April 18 to get hands-on lessons in physical and occupational therapies.

The scouts – about 23 from various troops in the township – spent the day performing exercises and learning about the equipment used in different therapies.

Created by Jazmine Tooles, a therapist at the center and a former township Girl Scout, the program is also meant to give the girls “a chance also to see what it’s like to be a patient we might deal with,” she said.

Tooles created the program while she was a student at the University of Delaware, she said. The university presents it as an annual program, she said.

The scouts were able to experience equipment such as power wheelchairs, tilt tables and electrical stimulation units, and try to complete exercises such as getting into a chair from the floor, without the use of their legs, or cooking with one hand.

During the afternoon session, the scouts were taught things such as how to deal with stress, heart health and learned how to take their own blood pressure and heart rate.

Willow Creek staff volunteered for the event, as did students from Rutgers University, Tooles said.

At the end of the day, the scouts were awarded “Fun Badges” designed by Tooles.

Camryn Hadley, a Senior Scout with Troop 67152, said the day made her think about physical therapy as a profession.

“I was kind of leaning toward day care, but now I’m thinking more of physical therapy because I went through it becase my hip got inflamed last year,” she said. “Now I want to help othes because I know what it’s like.”

Girl Scouts At Willow Creek 2015

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