Photo Credit: Coach Gary Marks Connection is one of the most crucial parts of youth sports. Whether it’s connections between players, with coaches, or with the sport itself, the way we build community can have a huge impact on young players’ enjoyment of and commitment to the game. In our expanding work with sports …
In the past few years, the Department of Education, the Surgeon General, and the CDC all agreed: belonging isn’t a buzzword. It’s an essential factor in well-being, especially for young people, who need it more than ever in the midst of the current mental health crisis. But how can teachers make such a broad concept …
Creating belonging for young people is not a one-and-done project. It’s a cycle of effort, learning, and improvement. Does that sound like an opportunity—or does it already sound exhausting? For any educator who feels tired just thinking about working toward another goal, you’re not alone. K-12 education is still seeing the highest rates of burnout …
Welcome to Belonging in Action, a series about how Girls Leadership creates sustainable support for students and teachers. Today’s post asks, How did you learn SEL? Our facilitators ask this question of all the participating adults before most of our trainings, and in most cases, the answers are the same: they didn’t. Social and emotional …
This year marked our 15th anniversary as an organization, including a major change. While we started as a direct-service girl-serving organization, we’ve arrived at a new approach. When you listen to girls for 15 years you learn a ton, and what we learned is that the girls are powerful; it is the adults in their …
Sports are a powerful source of leadership development and well-being for youth. Studies show that girls who participated in sports had higher rates of academic achievement and hope for the future. Yet by age 14, girls start dropping out of sports at twice the rate of their male peers. That rate is even higher for girls with …
You may have heard of the Alphabet Relay, a fun group relay to brainstorm as many ideas as possible using the structure of the alphabet. The Girls Leadership version, an Emotional Alphabet Relay, is a game to help players express how they are feeling and reflect on their relationship with their emotions. This version was …
Click here to download the Barbie Podcast Activity Guide Check out Katya Echazarreta’s heartwarming video: If you are a youth-serving professional looking for some community, new skills, play, and joy, come join us in one of our programs for sports coaches, family-service providers, and educators. Programs for youth-serving professionals Here are …
Naming our feelings is powerful. That’s true even—or especially—when we’re hurting. School has just begun, and already we’re faced with the horrifying tragedy of another school shooting. We have been bombarded with an overwhelm of news, memorials, and arguments. In order to re-establish equilibrium, we want to invite our community to join us in naming …
To celebrate Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander (AANHPI) Heritage Month, we’ve created a list of books for young people by and about members of the AANHPI community. We encourage you to read these with the girls and gender-expansive youth you know, and connect over characters who face challenges, stand up for themselves, and …
