Prince George teen wins national pageant, advocates for youth mental health

Muncey explained a huge part of pageantry is supporting and advocating for a cause you’re passionate about, and for her it’s teen and youth mental health.

“We’ve come a long way of being able to actually talk about mental health instead of hiding it away and bottling it up, and I think that’s really great. We’ve taken a lot of really big steps, but we need more accessible resources for sure, there’s not enough,” she said.

Mental health is a topic that’s quite personal to Muncey, as she explained she also struggled with mental health so she hopes to make a positive impact towards further increasing access to supports, and helping other people who may also be struggling.

“I really just struggled to make connections, and I felt that a lot of the time I didn’t have a support system outside of my own family, which is really wonderful, but it’s not the same. When talking to my different peers, we have a support system like school counselors and stuff, but quite often I found that my own generation don’t trust school counselors because of previous experiences. So this is why I wanted to create a resource that wasn’t school counseling, that created more opportunities for people to grow together,” Muncey said, when explaining what she hopes to achieve.

When preparing for the pageant Muncey spent a lot of time researching and getting involved with several community organizations, like Girls Club for example. Beyond the need for more supports, Muncey is also focusing on the importance of connection and a sense of community with people your own age, which she says is especially important for youth and teens.

“I’ve learned mostly that we just need to create more opportunities for youth to actually come together and feel more secure in who they are,” she said.

Muncey’s ideas are more than just ideas, as she’s already taken several steps to turn her thoughts into action. Beyond her research and involvement with local community groups, Muncey started an organization called SHIP, standing for Sharing, Healing, Inspiring, and Progressing.

“Through this, I’m hoping to find someone who’s going to help me build an app. This app will link with different counseling clinics and provide scheduling and use location to pair the perfect counselor with the perfect client,” she explained, when speaking on the type of work she hopes SHIP accomplishes.

Muncey added another large focus of hers is the Sophia Lia magazine, a magazine made by Pageantry Canada to be distributed freely in schools supporting mental health.

“It talks about everything, all the touchy subjects, everything that it might be a little uncomfortable to talk about, but still needs to be talked about,” she said.

The work it takes to be crowned Miss Teen Personality Western Canada is certainly noticed by Muncey’s mother Benita Forzani, who is incredibly proud of her daughter not only for being crowned, but for all the great work she’s done with mental health advocacy.

“That’s the part that I’m most proud of. I’m proud of her to put herself out there first of all, because it’s no small feat to stand in front of many, many people and walk on a stage or talk through a microphone. And she’s done a lot of work towards her platform and mental health advocacy,” Forzani said.

“There’s a lot behind the scenes too. So every day she is posting on social media, she’s researching, she’s looking for what would make a captivating clip for an audience of her age group or her peer group, or maybe a bit older and younger. There’s a lot of thought put into it, a lot of research and a lot of care,” Forzani added, when speaking of some of the work Muncey does.

Going forward, Muncey plans to continue working to improve mental health using her pageantry platform, and says it is likely she will appear in more pageants in the future.

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by Tommy Osborne

Prince George teen wins national pageant, advocates for youth mental health

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