What if the most marginalized girls in your community felt like they belonged? What if these girls and gender-expansive youth felt seen, valued, and celebrated by both peers and adults, and not only participated but thrived while learning about themselves and their relationships? Girls Leadership professional development training offers a roadmap to that future. We provide the teaching approach and curriculum to connect with all students. When you’re connected, you can teach them to build healthy relationships with each other, and they gain the confidence, skills, and ability to make change in the world.
Participants reported gaining both practical tools and greater confidence from our training. One participant shared, “I showed up to empower my girls, and I am leaving understanding that this is what I needed for me.”
- 93% of participants said they were very or moderately confident in their ability to use a culturally responsive mindset and practices, compared to 49% in the pre-training survey.
- 91% were also very or moderately confident in their ability to teach youth how to identify values, beliefs, and biases, compared to 58% in the pre-training survey.
- 100% of participants would recommend the professional development training to a friend or colleague.
- Nine out of ten participants had implemented curricula or a classroom activity from the professional development training six months after the training.
AVAILABLE WORKSHOP MODULES
Girls Leadership customizes trainings to meet teams’ needs, from single 2-hour modules, to a half-day or full-day, to a full three-day training. Training is available in person or virtually, depending on location and duration of the training.
Our approach is intentionally modular, so that learning institutions can mix and match according to their needs. Many start with Brave Space Groundwork in order to establish strong foundations in essential social and emotional learning concepts, although we are happy to make accommodations to meet the needs of your community.
1) Brave Space Groundwork
What is a brave space? Participants will learn the skills to create environments of mutual accountability, growth, and understanding. Upon completion, participants will be able to:
- Describe what a brave space sounds, looks, and feels like for their youth and gain practical tips.
- Recognize how various comfort zones feel emotionally and physically and use this knowledge to invite colleagues and youth to take productive risks towards learning.
- Experience the vulnerability and rewards of building trust within a community as well as develop tools for repairing broken trust.
Comes with four lessons to incorporate brave spaces into teaching, coaching, and facilitation.
“The Brave Spaces curriculum is already being used by K-5 educators in their classrooms to cultivate brave conversations.”
– Public School District Curriculum Specialist.
2) Centering Gender and Racial Equity in Social-Emotional Learning
Our identities shape our experiences, and that includes the experience of Social-Emotional Learning (SEL). Upon completion, participants will be able to:
- Name the 5 core competencies of SEL. Recognize the importance of developing SEL skills in youth as well as modeling emotional intelligence as educators.
- Distinguish between mainstream and transformative SEL programs and explain how the connection of SEL to racial and gender equity can strengthen youth’s connection to the curriculum.
- Define leadership and draw the connection between SEL, leadership development, and racial/gender equity.
- Recognize the impacts of gender norms and social messaging on youth’s behavior and experiences, and ideate on how trauma and marginalization can result when we fail to interrupt harmful messaging.
Comes with four lessons to incorporate transformative SEL into teaching, coaching, and facilitation.
“This entire curriculum is based on equity and access. Bless your work, this is really helpful for addressing diversity in my content. There isn’t a lot available online at times which adds on to our teacher load and having this content available to me now makes it that much easier to be fully present during class.”
– Participant from Los Angeles, CA
3) Culturally Responsive Mindsets
Cultural differences are opportunities for greater understanding and connection, but only if we recognize and appreciate them. Upon completion, participants will be able to:
- Explore the role of identity and culture in creating spaces that are inclusive to youth who have been systematically marginalized.
- Name practices that lead to a culturally responsive mindset and teaching framework.
- Experience activities that foster a sense of belonging and facilitate building relational trust with young people.
- Develop awareness of how dominant culture influences the organizational culture and communication in our workplace and recognize when our individual practices uphold dominant culture.
Comes with four lessons to bring culturally responsive mindsets into teaching, coaching, and facilitation.
“The training…provided a productive reframing of how we can learn about ourselves, change the way we structure programming, and grow to be able to better serve the youth that we work with.”
– Participant from Oakland, CA
4) Bias Intervention
We all have biases – and we can all reduce the role they play in our lives. Upon completion, participants will be able to:
- Name the ways in which implicit bias shows up in our institutions and our individual practice. Define dominant culture and pinpoint its influences on our policies, routines, and spaces.
- Challenge ourselves to practice bias intervention in our own lives, so that we may better model it for young people.
- Discuss scenarios of bias, understand common barriers to intervention, and practice putting together an action plan to disrupt them.
Comes with four lessons to bring an awareness of bias and tools for intervention into teaching, coaching, and facilitation.
“So far, this has been the best workshop I have been to. Why? Because they made it safe; gave us data and taught us important concepts through visual & auditory tools; had us reflect; was interactive and gave us tangible lessons to implement in our work environment. Hit all markers! Thank You.”
– Participant from Atlanta, GA
5) Addressing Compassion Fatigue
Compassion fatigue is not inevitable or irreparable. Upon completion, participants will be able to:
- Define compassion fatigue and distinguish it from burnout to appropriately address its impacts.
- Identify the root causes of our compassion fatigue and recognize its symptoms, both physical and emotional. Investigate the unexpected ways in which it shows up in our personal and professional lives.
- Analyze the social messaging around compassion fatigue and develop ways to address it on personal and collective levels.
Comes with four lessons to help educators engage their vocation with an understanding of and tools to combat compassion fatigue.
“I have so many activities now to help facilitate hard conversations, help students build relationships, and help adults reflect and improve their personal and professional practices.”
– Participant from NewYork, NY
6) From Trauma-Informed Practice to Healing-Centered Engagement
Shifting the way we engage with trauma can make it easier to address it. Upon completion, participants will be able to:
- Recognize the signs of trauma in ourselves and propose preventive measures and solutions.
- Engage in healing-centered approaches with youth and take an asset-based perspective centering culture, identity, and well-being.
- Practice making the key mental shifts that will enable us to reimagine our relationships with young people as well as our vocation.
Comes with four lessons to bring healing-centered engagement into teaching, coaching, and facilitation.
“The training helped me put a name/title to some of the work we have been doing; it allowed me to put a different lens on and see things about myself I may not have been aware of or have paid attention to. It put me in a space to think deeper and dream bigger than I have. I thank you!”– Assistant Director, PS 154
Prices vary depending on if training is online or in person, and on travel times. Please contact us at info@girlsleadership.org for a proposal tailored to the needs of your organization.
FULL TRAINING
The full 3-day training is available in person for up to 30 people, or over 6 weekly sessions online. Online training can include more than 30 people. The training covers all modules and outcomes listed above.
The full training also provides:
- Cohort-based discussion groups that allow participants to process individual learning, test out strategies, support others, and prepare to take learning back to their community
- Opportunities to experience the Girls Leadership curriculum and learn best practices
- Time and space to reflect on the connections between modules and deepen how you model integrating racial/gender equity into your SEL practice
- The ability to connect with a powerful community of caring adults committed to supporting the wellness, leadership, and power of young people
- Space to laugh together, enjoy good food, and experience many of the games from our curriculum
In addition to the live-facilitated training, full training participants will receive a robust curriculum with 90+ gender and culturally responsive SEL lessons with suggested sequences, resource links, handouts, and materials developed specifically for grades 5-8, adaptable to grades K-12.
Professional development training clients include Harlem Children’s Zone, The Young Women’s Leadership Schools of East Harlem, Astoria, and Queens, Alameda County School District, Natomas School District, Denver Public Schools, and Girls Inc. of Alameda and Girls Inc. of the Pacific Northwest.
Prices vary depending on if training is online or in person, and on travel times. Please contact us at info@girlsleadership.org for a proposal tailored to the needs of your organization.
TRAINERS
Public Trainings
View our current offering of public workshops here.
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WHAT PARTICIPANTS ARE SAYING
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Can I receive credits for the training?
If your supervising organization approves this training to meet CEUs, we can approve documentation that certifies your hours of participation in this training.
Who is the training for?
The training is designed for educators, administrators, district leaders, youth-serving professionals, counselors, and formal volunteers who work regularly with girls in grades 5-8.
Can I train others to teach the curriculum?
Completion of this training does not authorize individuals to sell the program or train others to teach it.
