Changing the Tide for Incarcerated Girls in Texas with Empowering Programs
Girls Empowerment Network was awarded its first federal grant in the fall of 2022 to pilot and adapt our research-based, self-efficacy-building curriculum for incarcerated teen girls in McLennan County, Texas. These support services will initially be provided to girls aged 10-17 housed in the McLennan County State Juvenile Correctional Facility in Mart, Texas.
Girl Connect programming already exists across 84 Texas program sites, mostly K-12 schools and community centers, in Travis, Williamson, Hays, Caldwell, Harris, Bexar and Dallas counties. This new program is being customized for girls who are facing more serious challenges.
We are deeply concerned about adolescent girls’ vulnerability to entanglement in the juvenile justice system and have gained experience in partnering with local, county, and state systems, and in-school disciplinary programs, to help intervene and guide girls back to their personal goals and out of the system. This is why juvenile justice staff-initiated conversations with us in 2021 to learn how best to find more culturally-competent, trauma-informed support for girls in Texas juvenile justice facilities dealing with serious life challenges. They joined us as a partner on the proposal that we submitted for federal OJJDP funding that was successfully contracted this fiscal year.
What Challenges Do Incarcerated Girls Face?
In 2012, research conducted with girls at Ron Jackson State Juvenile Correctional Facility in Brownwood, Texas found that girls do not have enough help addressing past trauma in their lives, girls can struggle with negative interactions with staff, and girls may be exposed to or experience youth-on-youth violence in state secure facilities. You can find more facts about youth involved in the Texas juvenile justice system here.
While this study makes it clear that girls who are entangled in juvenile justice systems often experience traumatization, girls experience other challenges as well. For example, there is an extremely high association between mental illnesses in girls who have been incarcerated, and incarcerated juvenile females are more likely to suffer from depression, anxiety and PTSD. Girls in the juvenile justice system are 3.5 times more likely to deal with childbirth, and 30 percent of girls in the justice system have been pregnant at least once or more (source).
In addition, youth committed to the Texas Juvenile Justice Department facilities function, on average, four to five years below expected grade level for their ages. Despite these deficits, they do have access to explore a variety of career options, high school courses, GED equivalents, and college and vocational credit as part of their individual rehabilitation plans. The juvenile justice system is focused on rehabilitation for youth in their care.
What New Support Will Be Available to Empower Incarcerated Girls?
In partnership with the Texas Juvenile Justice Department, McLennan County State Juvenile Correctional Facility, and Excellence & Advancement Foundation, we will be working together to provide small group, facilitated Girl Connect programs to provide girls with positive peer connections and places to practice new skills and build individual self-efficacy. Self-efficacy is one’s belief in their own ability to overcome challenges and succeed, and it is extremely important in times of crisis and trauma for children.
The programming we are developing will teach goal setting, healthy relationship skills, growth mindset, positive communication, and more. We will continue to utilize the evidence-based Girls Circle groups model, as a best practice in working with high-risk adolescent girls led by a trained and credentialed Girls Empowerment Network Juvenile Justice Program Facilitator.
Meet Girls Empowerment Network’s Juvenile Justice Program Facilitator
After a comprehensive talent search, Angela Montijo, LMSW, joined the Girls Empowerment Team in February 2023 and will be leading the new Girl Connect programming at McLennan County State Juvenile Correctional Facility in Mart, Texas, this summer.
Angela Montijo, LMSW joined Girls Empowerment Network in February to lead the new program at McLennan County State Juvenile Correctional Facility
As the only first-gen in her family, Angela Montijo was born into multiple layers of disparity and had to empower herself to occupy spaces of advocacy, equity, and access to help her family with basic needs. “Truthfully, I’ve been doing this social work since childhood,” she quips. Prior to joining the Girls Empowerment Network team, she was a school social worker and realized the work she needed and wanted to be doing was at a much more macro level. After working in education for the last decade, she says, “I've gotten closer and closer to my calling of working toward liberation, upholding the decolonization of mental health, and anti-carcerality.”
“Above all, what interests me is a cultural shift from punitive approaches and zero-tolerance policies. What we do at Girls Empowerment Network isn't just about telling girls to believe in themselves. It goes beyond that and into shifting perceptions of self and others, understanding our locus of control, and tapping into advocacy's power,” she says.
This systems-based outlook explains why Girls Empowerment Network is incorporating training for other direct-service staff as well to increase the entire team's competencies working with system-impacted youth and serving as their advocates. “It’s not enough for me - a single person - to come into an environment to ‘help.’ It’s more impactful for everyone involved to truly understand our approach and apply our language for the benefit of the girls,” says Montijo. “In this way, we hope to make a bigger impact to support these girls and equip them with skills they can use to exit the justice system and reach for their goals.”
Building a Sense of Belonging to Initiate Healing
Montijo looks forward to delivering Girl Connect programming on values and identity. “My professional and lived experience combined helps me understand the dire need for belonging as part of healing,” she says. When we're able to understand who we are within the context of our environment and the systems therein, we can make a better sense of what we can do and who we can become.”
The Girls Empowerment Network’s Values and Identity curriculum modules will help girls become more aligned, so their actions match their values and their intersecting identities can align with their values. “These girls have likely encountered messaging, either directly or indirectly, that has diminished their self-worth and self-esteem,” Montijo explains. “Children are not born bad, they're told they are and then they start to believe it for themselves and then they behave accordingly.”
Stay Connected to Our Mission to Empower All Girls
Follow our progress with girls receiving care in the McLennan County State Juvenile Correctional Facility. The first Girl Connect group has begun at the facility and we look forward to expanding this program to other Texas Juvenile Probation partners and secure facilities for incarcerated girls in Texas by fall 2023. Sign up today to receive our monthly newsletter, learn more about our impact, and donate toward our mission.