CWLA’s Children’s Voice online (January/February, 2005 issue) contains these two articles available to read/download.

Growing Girls for Greatness - Describes the development of the Arizona Girls Initiative, which is based on the National Girls Initiative strategy to prioritize the positive development, health, and well-being of girls and young women in the United States. The AZGI is intended to capture the momentum of NGI and to add to it through a strategy that could be replicated by other states interested in improving services for girls, with a special emphasis on juvenile justice.

Beating the Body Image Blues – An interview with Valerie McManus, the author of A Look in the Mirror: Freeing Yourself From the Body Image Blues. McManus realized teen girls needed both information on body image issues and a creative outlet. She developed a workshop that introduces and explores body image and presents it to community nonprofit groups and Girl Scout troops. McManus helps girls assess the message they receive from society about women’s bodies, gives them an opportunity to express their feelings about being female, and provides solid information on healthy bodies, healthy living, diets, eating disorders, and gender stereotypes.

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Wichita Teens Lured into Child Prostitution Ring

A major investigation involving an Oklahoma prostitution ring has revealed that as many as six girls from Wichita, Kan. were involved. Some of them were runaways from a Wichita drug treatment facility. Some of them were recruited by a former football player from a Wichita high school. Five of the six Wichita girls have been accounted for. The sixth is believed to be in Mexico.

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What About Girls in Indiana’s Juvenile Justice System?

The Indiana Criminal Justice Institute recently published this report examining influences that result in girls entering Indiana’s juvenile justice system. It takes into account not only objective analysis of delinquency indicators but the observations of girls in shelter care and detention, women in Indiana prisons, and the professionals who work with adolescent girls. 78 page pdf file.

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What Girls Need to Know

At McGruff’s Milstein Child safety Center online take a look at “What Girls Need to Know.” This section of the site provides information to parents and concerned adults about these topics:  female bullying; alcohol, drugs, and tobacco; gender roles; and being safe online. I liked the Choose Your Own Ending section too; a set of scenarios in which the reader decides what the kid in the story ought to do.

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Anorexic Girls

An underground internet subculture where teenage girls bond over their eating disorders and glorify bone-thin celebrities is a growing trend and it frustrates treatment for the girls. Online the girls share their near-starvation diet and offer tips for denying hunger pangs or dodging suspicious family members. They talk about weight loss through laxatives, diet pills and purging. They idolize Mary-Kate Olson, who was recently hospitalized for an eating disorder, and Kate Moss, among other super skinny celebrities. This article from MSNBC also features a very good fact file on anorexia and bulimia – warning signs, causes, treatment, mortality.

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Findings From an Evaluation of the Young Women’s CHOICES HIV-Prevention Program

CHOICES, in Brooklyn, New York,  is designed to serve high-risk HIV-negative girls, ages 14-17, who are mandated by the Family Court to CCA’s (Center for Community Alternatives) Youth Advocacy Project for community supervision. This article from Women, Girls & Criminal Justice magazine describes an assessment of the program’s implementation and success in achieving its goals, among which are reducing risky sexual practices and increasing knowledge about HIV/AIDS.  5 page pdf file.

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Girl Connection Caregiver’s List

Girl Connection is a newsletter for those who serve adolescent females in Iowa. This issue is devoted to suggestions for anyone who is in a caregiver position for young women. This link will take you to a list of ways to work toward the empowerment of young women and relationships that help them flourish.

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Stalking Resource Center

The National Center for Victims of Crime maintains this web site. Its resources include recent laws to protect immigrant stalking, an information clearinghouse, and a downloadable handbook. Stalking: A Handbook for Victims can be downloaded at the site. The handbook is 72 pages packed with valuable information and resources. Pdf file.

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Violent Crimes by Girls Are Rising. Why?

This article is representative of a number of recent newspaper articles about rising crime among girls. It asks experts in the field why. Their answers include a rise in violence in pop culture and a distortion of the movement to empower women, or a change in the way the juvenile justice system handles girls.

Girls and Juvenile Justice – Here’s a handy two-page fact sheet about girls in the juvenile justice system from the web site of Girls Incorporated.

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Girls are Driving More and Faster Than They Used To

Among 15- to 20-year-old girls there has been a 42% increase in young female driver fatalities from 1992 to 2002. The rate for young males rose 15%. Young women are crashing cars and dying in cars at significantly higher rates than a decade ago. They’re driving like guys.

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Portrait of Risk

The PACE Center for Girls in Florida has published a snapshot of PACE girls that underscores the need to collect data on gender specific issues. The report examines risk factors specific to girls:

• rape
• sexual, physical and emotional abuse
• early initiation into sex
• absent parent
• poverty
• school failure,
• self mutilation
• domestic violence
• mental health disorders.

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Trauma Among Youth in the Juvenile Justice System

The National Child Traumatic Stress Network (NCTSNet) has just published four new fact sheets on youth in the juvenile justice system. They are:

• Trauma Among Girls in the Juvenile Justice System

• Victimization and Juvenile Offending

• Assessing Exposure to Psychological Trauma and Posttraumatic Stress in the Juvenile Justice Population

• Trauma-Focused Interventions for Youth in the Juvenile Justice System

The fact sheets are the work of the University of Connecticut School of Medicine, the Yale/UConn Center for Children Exposed to Violence, and the Juvenile Justice Working Group.

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Girls Benefit from All-Girls Clubs

Research that shows that girls benefit from safe, same-sex territory is fueling a movement toward girls-only facilities around the country. Research conducted by YWCA and the Girl Scouts shows that same-sex environments equip girls with a higher sense of self, increased confidence to pursue goals and an awareness of the lives of those around them.

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Girls Inc. PSAs tell adults what messages girls need to hear from them

A new series of TV, radio and print public service announcements from Girls Inc. challenge traditional beliefs about girls. In the PSAs girls tell adults that they need encouragement to face their fears, to be risk takers, to have self-confidence, and to achieve great things. They are based on the results of a Girls’ Inc. survey. At the site you can watch the PSAs.

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Virginia’s Campaign Against Sex With Underage Girls

The billboards will say “Isn’t she a little young? Sex with a minor. Don’t go there.” in pink and white lettering against a black background. Health officials hope their program will reduce the number of pregnancies that result from sexual relationships between young girls and adult men.

The officials became alarmed when they reviewed state studies showing that in 1999 and 2000, 219 babies born to 13- and 14-year-old girls were fathered by men over age 18. They also cited national statistics that show men older than 21 are three times as likely to father children with junior high school girls as are junior high school boys.

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African Women’s Health Center Addresses Genital Mutilation

While the subject of this article is beyond the typical subject matter addressed in Brevity, I’m including it for those people who may find themselves dealing with young African women who have been genitally cut and suffer from the medical problems associated with this condition. The clinic at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston is apparently the only place in the country that provides appropriate treatment with cultural understanding.

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Kentucky Treatment Program for Girls Under Fire

A report in the Louisville Courier-Journal points to the many flaws of the state’s only center for female juvenile offenders. Critics say the center lacks trained therapists and its program for treating girls who have been sexual abused is seriously flawed.

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Washington State Finds Girls Growing More Violent

Of 18 current cases in the King County School Violence Program, seven involve girl-on-girl attacks. In another instance three Mount Vernon middle-school girls jumped a schoolmate and beat her senseless at a dance for honor students. Experts differ on whether the upswing is due to increased aggression among adolescent girls or simply more aggressive reporting. Girl on girl violence is often notable for its viciousness. One school official reports that the same kinds of things that have always caused taunts or teasing before, now are more physical.  

In 2001, arrests for aggravated assault among girls were up 82% over 1987 levels, while for boys they rose 9%, according to OJJDP. 

• 32% of girls say what worries them the most is not fear of physical harm, but fear of being teased and being made fun of.

   

• 38% said they worry about their emotional safety when they’re with their peers.

   

• Although 72% of girls defined safety as not being physically hurt, 46% described it as not having their feelings hurt.

   

• 34% of teen girls worry about finding people their own age to talk to and trust.

   

• Almost one-fourth of teen girls say they have fewer than 3 adults they could go to if they were in trouble or needed help.

   

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Why Girls Cut and Burn Themselves

This article from women'senews addresses self-mutilation by teenage women from a different point of view. Female teens are logging on the the internet to talk about why they injure themselves, pointing toward a culture in which it is acceptable to talk about it. Among professionals working with teens, most are aware that cutting is a particularly female affliction.  Dr. Wendy Lader, director of a self-injury program,  says that while boys traditionally express anger outwardly and more directly, girls live in a more body-focused culture. "Skin is a bulletin board. They're saying, 'Can you see how much pain I'm in?'"

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