by M. Nell Myhand and Paul Kivel A Multi-Session Program for Young Women

Our special Young Women's Empowerment Groups are multi-session programs (8-10 sessions) designed specifically to meet the needs of girls and young women as they work towards a deeper sense of themselves and their own power, especially as it relates to health. We would be happy to work to tailor the length and longevity of multi-sessions to meet the needs of your group.

Curriculum Overview

For our multi-session programs for young women, we use the curriculum: "Young Women's Lives", by M. Nell Myhand and Paul Kivel . This curriculum includes lessons, exercises and activities designed to help young women develop self-respect, along with a repertoire of skills for creating healthy relationships with friends, allies and dating partners. Issues of power and control in relationships, stereotypes of how women ought to act, ways that women have learned to restrain or stifle expressions of anger, and strategies for resisting others' acts of aggression are a few of the many topics covered in the series. The package was created by Todos Institute staff, in partnership with the Oakland Men's Project.

Goals of the curriculum

The primary goal of the curriculum is to create a safe place for young women to talk, to speak for themselves, to hear themselves, to hear one another, to hear the voices of women in the community and in history and to do so in the presence of at least one adult who is listening with respectful and caring attention. The second goal is to help young women, both individually and collectively, develop resistance strategies to meet the difficult challenges they face in a society that does not always take their best interests at heart.

Structure of our Young Women's Groups

Young Women's Lives includes 21 lesson plans. The curriculum is divided into four sections:

• Foundations Participants establish program agreements, lay the foundation for trusting each other, begin discussion on violence, abuse and healing, and start to examine themselves and their choices in terms of their cultural framework.
• Taking Care of Ourselves
  We examine the expectations that society and culture place on how girls look, think, behave and communicate. They learn to identify and express feelings, anger and needs, and examine self-destructive behaviors. Finally, participants discuss caring for their emotional health.
• Resisting Male Violence
  Participants discuss the messages boys receive about "being a man" and the role of violence in men's lives. They learn to recognize relationship violence, sexual harassment and sexual assault, to move beyond blaming themselves for this violence and to cope, resist and advocate against these forms of violence.
• Putting it All Together
  Participants explore their strengths, assets and current environment and examine the impact these factors have on their future education and job prospects. They discuss relationships, healthy intimacy, homophobia and family planning. The group engages in a process of saying good-bye to the program and think about women who may be allies to them in the future.

We choose lesson plans for the group based on the group's unique needs, adding lessons from other curriculum as needs arise. Although the group is educational in nature, this program will be facilitated in a way that is flexible and responsive to the directions in which the participants take it. We ask that group leaders allow for time for follow-up either on their own part or for the group's facilitator in order to better address some of the complex issues that may be raised during group.

Values that form the base of the program

The curriculum Young Women's Lives has as its thesis that "every young woman has incredible power, intelligence, strength and resiliency". The groups offered through this program work to build on the strengths that all people have, with a particular emphasis on the needs of young women.