Impact Highlights: Reflecting on Impactful Moments for Girls Empowerment Network's 2022-2023 School Year
Written by: Chloé LaPorte, LCSW, Senior Program Director
Each fall at Girls Empowerment Network we get the opportunity to live one of our organizational values, “Ring the Bell,” where we prove our impact and celebrate our successes in the gender justice movement, we are so a proud part of! In the 2022-2023 school year, Girls Empowerment Network served 4,889 girls through school-based workshops (2722), groups (1857), camps (148), and conferences (76). We served 76 girls through the Spark Change Project, 9 girls in our Youth Ambassador Council, and piloted our newest initiative to serve 12 girls in the juvenile justice system.
Ringing the bell means taking a moment to pause and reflect on all the hard work we have put forth towards our mission of igniting the power in girls. At the beginning of the school year, members of the Program Department, our girl experts who work directly with girls and their families, determined that the theme for this year was, “compassion for yourself connects you to others.” From engaging with girls, and the people who care about them, we learned that our youth needed to grow their self-compassion and to feel connected to their peers. Our programs help girls develop coping skills to manage stress. They also teach girls the concept of self-compassion, described by UT Professor, Dr. Kristin Neff as, “the process of turning compassion inward,” or as we frame it to girls, “being your own best friend.”
“Girl Connect is a way to find who you really are with others that understand.”
Fostering Accessibility and Inclusivity in Our Programs
We stayed committed to our value of ensuring our programs are accessible – 97% of schools we served were Title 1 campuses. We brought our self-efficacy building curriculum to 9 counties across the state of Texas, serving McLennan County and Polk County for the very first time in our agency’s history and served the most schools (104) ever. 43% of our program participants were Latinx/Hispanic and 31% were Black.
Empowering Girls through Skill Development and Self-Expression
Our evaluation process, overseen by Dr. Sarah Miller-Fellows, measures girls’ self-efficacy and evaluates the important skills we teach in our programming, the Six Cs: (collaboration, communication, confidence, coping skills, creativity and critical thinking) as well as peer bonding, connection to community and relatable role models, and positive identity. In our programs’ post-survey analysis, we were proud to discover that 81% of girls in our programs say they understand how ads, movies or social media can make people feel bad about their bodies. Curriculum modules like Media Literacy and Social Media Safety cultivate strong critical thinking. As a result of our programming, 80% of girls say they can express their feelings through art, writing, or music and 77% of girls say they can use their imagination. Youth are incredibly creative and learn how to use that creativity to cope with difficult emotions and to solve problems in their lives. We are particularly proud that 84% of program participants would recommend Girls Empowerment Network Programs to other girls; girls think our programming could be helpful to other girls, the greatest compliment.
Participants who attend programs that occur across multiple sessions complete pre- and post-surveys at the beginning and end of each program, allowing us to see our impact on girls. Our Radiant G Curriculum is designed so that facilitators can customize it to fit the needs of the girls in their program. The pre-survey also gives facilitators great information about what their girls need to be successful and to increase their self-efficacy.
2022-2023 Pre to Post Survey Results by Domain
In this year’s pre- and post-surveys, program participants had significant* increases in self-efficacy, collaboration, communication, confidence, coping skills, creativity, critical thinking, positive body image, bonding, connection to community, and positive identity. The skills with the most change during our programs were communication, critical thinking, and coping skills. Our focus this year on self-compassion and connecting with others led to such gains in stress management techniques (coping skills) and the ability to connect with others (communication, collaboration, bonding, and connection to community). Our girl experts were able to implement the curriculum in the most effective way for their girls and partner schools to ensure that girls experienced growth in the most critical skills.
Empowering Progress: Impact Assessment Over Four Years of Girls Empowerment Network Programs
For the past four years, Girls Empowerment Network has measured girls’ self-efficacy and other key outcomes when they enter our programs and again at the end of each program. 1,527 matched pre- and post-surveys show program participants had significant increases in self-efficacy, collaboration, communication, confidence, coping skills, creativity, critical thinking, bonding, and positive identity. This shows our programs have a significant impact on increases in self-efficacy and other outcomes across the past four years of program evaluation!
2019-2023 Pre to Post Survey Results by Domain
The Spark Change Project: Sparking Change Among Youth Advocates for Social Justice
The 2023 Spark Change Project Peer Facilitators led incredible advocacy efforts during the Texas Legislature’s 88th Session. Facilitators provided testimony on bills related to free menstrual products in public schools and preventing discrimination on the basis of hair style and hair texture. Their efforts were recognized on the house floor by Representative Claudia Ordaz in House Resolution 461. In total, the Spark Change Project and Girls Empowerment Network team took action on 53 bills, highlighted in our legislative brief.
Spark Change Day is the cornerstone event of the Spark Change Project, a collaboration between the Excellence & Advancement Foundation and Girls Empowerment Network, whose mission is to center girls of color as leaders in advocacy who discover their activist voices and galvanize their peers to engage in their own passions for positive social change.
Spark Change Day inspires youth in grades 6-12 to be civically engaged and helps them develop their unique voice to advocate for themselves and their community. This impactful event included training on the power of advocacy, activities exploring issues youth are facing, and an electrifying panel of local female policy makers and advocates. 72 youth attended Spark Change Day 2023. 79% of attendees were girls of color.
At the end of the event, 95% of respondents said they proud of their gender identity and 85% said they feel proud of their racial/ethnic identity. 85% said “I feel comfortable working with people who are different than me. Attendees identified racism/equality; mental health; LGBTQ + rights; and women’s rights/equity as the most important issues in their communities.
“In my opinion, I think that mental health, good educations, and healthy support for girls and minorities are extremely important and unfortunately are a problem in my community.”
mini-Conference brings the magic of empowerment to manor
Girls Empowerment Network brought a mini conference to our community in Manor to ignite the power in 77 youth and 37 adults. 91% of girls said the conference helped them believe they can achieve their goals and that the event taught them to cope with stress in a healthy way. 94% of adults who attended We Are Girls Manor said they can better support girls in their life cope with stress in a healthy way and help girls in their life feel connected to their peers.
Empowerment for All girls: Upholding Girls' Empowerment in Juvenile Justice
“You give hope.”
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 summer 2023, Girls Empowerment Network brought our Girl Connect program to 12 juvenile justice-involved adolescent girls housed in the McLennan Court State Juvenile Correctional Facility in Mart, Texas. Multi-year funding through the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention made this program possible. The evaluation results from the pilot cohort showed that program participants had growth in all outcome domains, with statistically significant growth in critical thinking, body image, and connection to community. 100% of program attendees would recommend this program to other girls. Stay tuned as this program expands to other Texas Juvenile Probation partners and secure facilities to empower incarcerated girls in Texas.
Here are a few of our favorite quotes from the girls in the pilot group:
After this program I am able to:
“Talk about my feelings.”
“Have a different point of view.”
“Speak and advocate for myself and others.”
“Give my peers advice.”
“Be patient.”
Staff at the facility also saw changes in program participants. One staff member shared “The youth use a lot of the things that they learned in the groups held when they come back to their dorms. Coping skills - the importance and how to best use them. (They are) more excited about making changes in behavior.”
Celebrating Volunteers and Growing Adult Engagement for Girl Advocacy
We could not have done this work without our greater network of volunteers, and this year 406 volunteers contributed 8,335 hours towards our mission. We continue to build out our adult programming as we know that a girl’s environment greatly impacts her ability to believe in herself, and as self-efficacy psychologist Albert Bandura's research taught us, it’s important for girls to receive encouraging messages from the adults in their life (verbal persuasion) and be a role model for believing in yourself and your abilities (vicarious experiences). Girls Empowerment Network offers professional development workshops, parent/caregiver workshops, and corporate presentations to empower and educate our community of girl advocates. This year we served 293 adults through educational workshops and community events.
We hope you will join us in igniting the power in girls and proving our impact for many years to come.
Support our Mission
Making a difference for girls takes a committed community of caring adults. If you are inspired to help us reach and serve more girls, we have short- and long-term volunteer opportunities and a vibrant community of supporters who would welcome your involvement.
Be sure to visit our Impact Page to see our latest Impact Highlights Report and other details about the impact that your support makes possible.
About the Author: Chloé LaPorte, LCSW, brings a wealth of experience in education, mental health, and youth advocacy to her role as a Senior Program Director at Girls Empowerment Network. With experience in teaching, administration, and providing therapy to female inmates, Chloé's passion lies in empowering adolescent girls and young women. Her dedication to nurturing and supporting girls is a driving force in her role at Girls Empowerment Network, where she strives to help girls discover their power and potential.