The Girls Inc. Experience empowers girls to succeed. Girls Inc. provides girls with trusting mentoring relationships, a girls-only environment, and research-based, hands-on programming. Three critical goals drive our programming: to help girls achieve healthy lives, succeed academically, and acquire the life skills needed to prepare them for adulthood. We work to ensure that girls have the skills, knowledge, and support to identify and over come bullying.
Why is an anti-bullying program for girls important?
Girls deserve a healthy and positive environments to live, learn and play in, but they face many challenges that thwart their ability to grow. Bullying is a problem that affects millions of students and everyday there are thousands of children who wake up afraid to go to school. Studies show that people who are bullied by their peers are at risk for mental health issues, such as low self-esteem, stress, depression, or anxiety.
About the Program
This program is designed to help girls identify what bullying is and be able to recognize when it is happening. Our aim is to give girls the tools they need to deal with bullying in a proactive way to stop it from happening. Through discussions and group work, our hope is to create a safe environment for girls to be open and honest about how bullying affects them. As we go through the sessions, girls can better understand how big of an impact their words and actions can have on each other. Our goal is to create a positive group atmosphere where girls can learn to apologize for any bullying that may have taken place, change their behaviours for the better, use their words and actions to do good, and strengthen the friendship bonds between everyone involved. This program was designed by Girls Inc. of Northern Alberta Staff. Girls Against Bullying Alliance Program is delivered in 6 Sessions:
- Session #1: What is a friend? In this session participants will discuss what draws people together as friends and what makes somebody a true friend. The girls will do a group activity to identify what makes each of them a good friend.
- Session #2: What is a bully? In this session we will define what bullying is, the difference between teasing and bullying, strategies bullies use, and how girls bully differently than boys. We will also be discussing the different roles people take in bullying situations (the aggressor, the bystander, the victim). We will be watching a clip from the documentary "It's a Girl's World" and having a discussion about the nature of social bullying in friendships.
- Session #3: Cyber Bullying In this session we are going to talk about staying safe online and the importance of privacy settings on social media websites. We will also be discussing what cyberbullying is, how it is different from other kinds of bullying and the consequences of bullying online.
- Session #4: Strategies for Handling Bullies In this session we will define the five points of protection and brainstorm strategies for handling bullying situations. The girls will do an activity where they are given bullying scenarios and then discuss the best ways to deal with the bullying in each situation.
- Session #5: Dealing with Difference In this session we will be looking at what makes everyone different and then celebrating the diversity within our group. We will be defining prejudice and bias and discussing how our world could be a better place without these things. We will finish by watching another clip from "It's a Girl's World" and having a discussion about how girls can express their feelings without hurting friends.
- Session #6: Stress and Anger Management In this session we are going to define what stress is and discuss how stress can both lead someone to bully and be caused by being bullied. We will discuss healthy ways to deal with stress and anger.
For more information contact Girls Inc of Northern Alberta, call: 780-790-9236 or email: PD@girlsincofnorthernalberta.org