How to Strengthen Your Work with Girls

Learn from other youth workers
Tips on negotiating youth/adult relationships, including five ways to care for yourself when girls' painful stories resonate in you.
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Develop gender consciousness
What can gender consciousness mean, and how do you do it in youth programs? Options include female-only, multiple gender, and a combination of both. 
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Follow the Incarcerated Girls Bill of Health
Fifty girls recently wrote an Incarcerated Girls Bill of Health Rights:  #1: We believe that the girls in Cook County Detention Temporary Detention Center should be able to see their children more than once a week, and without…
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Elicit and support girls' questioning
When girls ask critical questions, analyze who benefits/who loses in current arrangements, and imagine how things could be better, they're taking crucial steps toward individual and group activism to make change happen. 

Practical strategies for eliciting and supporting girls' questioning, shared by the Center for Young Women's Development (CYWD), San Francisco, CA (http://www.cywd.org) and Sisters in Power for Action
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Provide safe space for LGBTQ youth
Because homophobia is a real problem, for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning, and straight youth, Advocates for Youth developed an online toolkit to help youth workers create safe space for young people of all sexual orientations and gender identities.

http://www.advocatesforyouth.org/publications/safespace

Forty-three Chicago area youth workers reported their practices, questions, concerns, and funding experiences in providing safe space for LGBTQ youth in their community-based organizations. The paper documents why much work remains to be done by youth-serving organizations and grantmakers. Practical activities and guides to make your work easier. How to support youth as they grow into their sexuality and gender identity. How to talk about lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning (LGBTQ) issues.

-LGBTQ Youth Safe Space Project: Summary and Recommendations

Read "Speak for Yourself"
Speak for Yourself: What Girls Say about What Girls Need reports on a GBF-commissioned two-year study of more than 200 girls ages 12 to 18 in six Illinois communities in urban, suburban, and rural areas. Our aim was twofold – to gather information about what works best for girls in programs, and to promote girls' power and leadership skills through participation in the research process and in partnership with adults.

Download the Speak for Yourself Executive Summary (PDF, 2 pages, 288K)

Download the Speak for Yourself Full Report (PDF, 107 pages, 800k)

The executive summary is best for youth workers just wanting the study's findings; the full report may be better for academics and others conducting research. To receive a paper copy of the report, please contact us at contact@girlsbestfriend.org or 312/266-2842.

Offer information about sex and sexuality education

-Sex & Sexuality Education Guide For Youth Workers   

Our guide represents homework we've done to help you provide girls with comprehensive, age-appropriate information about sex and sexuality education that’s empowering, sex-positive, and easily applied in your program

Incorporate evaluation & research into your programming
Do you need tools for change?  Are you passionate about proving your worth?  Looking for a way to strengthen your work? Girl's Best Friend is known for bringing in experts in the field to lead, coach and mentor grantees on evaluation issues.
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More resources

Chicago Girls Coalition (www.chicagogirlscoalition.org) offers Chicago-area youth workers gender-specific  training, peer-to-peer networking meetings, a growing website, and a directory of Chicago area girls programs.

Reach out to your colleagues by contacting program staff at any of the programs GBF helps fund (LINK to funding pages, main & SES). Those with experience are usually happy to share what they've learned, and may be great mentors. (If you're outside metro Chicago, check out grants lists of closer girls and women’s funds.) 

Need training in young women's and girls' organizing/advocacy/activism?  Check out the email list of the Chicago Girls Coalition (ChicagoGirlsCoalition@yahoogroups.com ) for opportunities; or contact Melissa Spatz at the Women & Girls Leadership Project (melissaspatz@juno.com ).  Watch for news about the development of the Chicago Summer Freedom School!

Need training in making your program safe for LGBTQ youth?  In the Chicago area: contact the Coalition for Sexual Orientation in Education (http://www.mhai.org/programs/glbt.htm) for training options; Yas Ahmed here at GBF (contact@girlsbestfriend.org).  Outside metro Chicago, contact Advocates for Youth (www.advocatesforyouth.org ).

Need training in youth development work?  See Chicago Area Project's training services. (http://www.chicagoareaproject.org/Training.htm )

-Read

Three great online resources include:

• Girls Coalition of Greater Boston (www.girlscoalition.org)
• Powerful Voices (www.powerfulvoices.org)
• See The New Girls Movement (all 3 reports) and Power & Possibilities at http://www.ms.foundation.org/wmspage.cfm?parm1=56 Don't miss the contact info for very impressive girls and youth groups across the U.S.; many have websites.

What ideas or topics are you looking for?  Tell us (contact@girlsbestfriend.org)