Supporting adolescent females with a leadership group
Abstract
Studies have shown that a dramatic decline in girls' self-esteem occurs between the ages of eight and 18. The International Learning Program in an alternative high school in Portland, Oregon, started an after-school Girls' Leadership Group to give female students a place to speak freely and build self-confidence. This paper by AmeriCorps member Erin Trahan won honorable mention in the 1997 Northwest National Service Symposium, hosted by the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory (NWREL).Issue
The International Learning Program (ILP) is an alternative high school in Portland that serves primarily students with immigrant or refugee backgrounds. It also serves students with behavioral problems or learning difficulties, students who need the personalized environment that alternative schools offer. Males outnumber females at ILP by almost two to one.
Studies have shown that a dramatic decline in girls' self-esteem occurs between the ages of eight and 18.The consequence is far-reaching. Researchers cite connections between low self-esteem and drug addiction, eating disorders, and depression. Low self-esteem and the ensuing loss of voice in adolescent girls cross the boundaries of race, socioeconomic class and geographic region.
The goal of the Girls' Leadership Group is to provide the support necessary to counteract the destructive message that females cannot or should not assert leadership.
Action
The Girls' Leadership Group meets after school. The agenda is created by the girls and only facilitated by female teachers. The most basic, yet powerful, direction given to the facilitators is that groups are to be structured but not scripted. Facilitators help create and maintain a safe, comfortable environment but allow the girls to decide their own activities. One form of structure the groups share is an opening and closing ritual, with each group creating its own rituals. Facilitators actively remind participants that the groups offer support but not professional therapy.
Prequisites for the facilitators include, first and foremost, commitment to the empowerment of young women. Facilitators have both formal and informal experience working with adolescent girls and articulating the social pressures on girls. Prequisites for the girls include mainly a willingness to be present, attentive, and respectful of the rules that the group creates.
Context
The Girls Leadership Group at the International Learning Program is the product of the Girls' Leadership Center at Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon. In 1996, the Girls' Leadership Center hosted a meeting for Portland women interested in the issues affecting adolescent girls. From that session emerged plans to pilot several Girls Leadership Groups.Citation
Trahan, Erin. "The Girls' Leadership Group at the International Learning Program of Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon." Second Annual NW National Service Symposium. Portland, Oregon: Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory, May 1997.Outcome
The Girls' Leadership Center lists the following as expected outcomes for girls who participate in Girls' Leadership Groups:
Girls will:
- Be able to recognize signs that they are being silenced, or silencing themselves
- Increase the frequency with which they risk expressing their perceptions and beliefs
- Demonstrate self-confident responses to pressure which will place them in positions of influence rather than victimization
- Recognize sexism and understand constructive options for responding to it
- Recognize any form of bias directed toward them or others and demonstrate ways of countering what they observe
- Experience improved self-esteem
- Understand what leadership is from situational and collective perspectives
- Demonstrate leadership in their communities through initiation of and participation in service activities
- Be able to identify and draw upon systems and individuals who are supportive of them
- Demonstrate appreciation, understanding and respect for themselves and their peers
Posted On
June 7, 2001Resources
Read "The Girls' Leadership Group at the International Learning Program of Ecumenical Ministries" by Erin E. Traha.
From The Resource Center library:
The Girls' Leadership Group at the International Learning Program of Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon
Item number: M1681