Girl's Program Initiative
Dreams With Wings 2005 Leads to New Program Dreams for YSB!
For the past eight years, the Youth Service Bureau (YSB) has been working with a group of women and girls to offer Dreams With Wings, a one-day conference for girls and women. Despite the positive feedback that YSB received from program participants, the agency has begun to carve out a new path for girls programming.
If you know youth, you know about the constant struggles that girls face every day. Many of these issues are similar to those we adults faced in our own childhood and adolescence. However, it is clear that the needs of young women have consistently evolved. The experiences of every young girl are different, and girls want, and are asking for, the support of adults and peers to help them make sense of these daunting dilemmas and emerge as positive and successful young women.
Having realized that, YSB has brought together a group of girls and women to identify the needs that girls have, and how the community can best support them through these difficult times. What we've found is anything but simple! The needs of girls are diverse and the impact adults can play on these adolescent needs varies throughout the stages of development, but we are determined to make an impact.
Still in the program stages of infancy and concept development, the planning committee for this Girl's Program Initiative has lofty but accessible goals to encourage girls to connect to caring adult women, foster self-esteem development, and empower girls to become leaders and make healthy decisions.
We are excited about the possibilities of what's to come, about the leadership opportunities that are becoming available to the participants of the planning committee, and about the increasingly positive sense of self that girls will feel after they have been given the opportunity to succeed in a truly supportive environment.
Coffee Talk is one example of the programming that can result from this committee. If you would like more information about this program or you feel you have something to contriute to planning for this program, please contact Tovah Rykken at 651-464-3685 or Tovah.Rykken@ysblakesarea.org. We'd really love to get more girls in grades 8-12 involved in this planning process, so contact us if you think you can help!