Ladies First to Host National Girls Circle Facilitator Conference

Girls Circle ®
Girls Circle promotes resiliency and healthy relationships in pre-teen and adolescent girls and young women. Our purpose is to encourage the development of strength, courage, confidence, honesty, and communication skills for all girls. Our goal is to create safe, culturally competent and trauma-informed environments to honor girls’ development and to enhance girls’ abilities so they are able to take full advantage of their talents, academic interests, career pursuits, and potential for healthy relationships. Girls Circles are uniquely positioned to address and challenge cultural messages that limit and distort girls’ self-image, and provide a female-responsive rites of passage process to support identity development. We have found that girls’ self-expression within a safe caring environment encourages self-confidence, authenticity in relationships, and enhanced judgment skills.

Girls Circle Facilitator Training aims to furnish adults with the knowledge, skills, and support to effectively facilitate Girls Circles. Manualized, age appropriate curricula provide Activity Guides equip facilitators with the structure, themes, activities, and guided discussions to promote healthy development.

The Girls Circle model incorporates:

• Weekly sessions for eight to twelve sessions or more
• Five to ten participants and one to two facilitators
• Consistent format with verbal and experiential or expressive activities
• Age-appropriate, gender-relevant themes
• Strengths-based facilitation strategies