From Gaps to Opportunities: Meeting the Needs of Girls in the Worcester Area
Investing in Girls believes that all local girls deserve to grow up to be happy, healthy, and productive.
In the summer of 2006, with the vision of improving the lives of 10- to 14-year-old girls in the Greater Worcester area through research, advocacy, and collaboration, the Investing in Girls group joined forces with the Women’s Initiative at the United Way of Central Massachusetts and the Fred Harris Daniels Foundation. Independently, each of these prominent local philanthropic organizations had engaged in strategic planning processes to determine where their focus should be and had concluded that among youth, the needs of middle-school girls were the most pressing. With the recognition that all three groups share a commitment to the healthy development of girls and to improving the effectiveness and efficiency of local services for girls, a new partnership was forged. Collectively, the group determined that they wanted to work together to develop a plan to address the identified needs of local girls in ways that supported existing programs and services, but did not duplicate them.
Recognizing that large-scale changes in the world such as the technological revolution have contributed to rapid, ongoing individual and community transformations, the group noted that girls’ lives are affected in unique ways and that the gap between the generations has been magnified. We therefore decided that the first step of a strategic planning process involving adults should be a comprehensive needs assessment that would result in a deeper understanding of girls’ needs, in both the immediate and the broader context.
To understand how Worcester area middle-school girls compare with girls nationally and to ensure that the needs assessment was grounded in current thinking about girls’ issues and gender-responsive programming, we designed the needs assessment to include a review of national research and local data on middle-school girls.
The specific goals of the needs assessment were to:
- identify the needs of local middleschool girls and their adult advocates--specifically parents and service providers of middle-school girls;
- gather preliminary information on existing support systems and programs;
- determine gaps in programs, services, resources, and training; and
- explore potential solutions.
Informed by the findings of the needs assessment reported herein, the IIG group has begun a strategic planning process that will culminate in an action plan. The plan may involve expansion of the Investing in Girls group into a more formal girlfocused coalition; establishment of new programs for girls; staff development for adults who work with girls; activities for parents and families of girls; cross-agency collaborations; vehicles for information sharing; public policy education and advocacy; and/or a different product or process.
This report will be useful as a tool for development, implementation, and assessment to ensure that all organizations in the Worcester area serving youth directly or indirectly are gender sensitive and responsive to the needs of young women. Included are schools and universities, community-based organizations, government agencies, philanthropic and research institutions, religious centers, and businesses.
Parents, youth workers, coaches, educators, policy makers, health providers, public officials, researchers, reporters, religious leaders, and community volunteers must focus on meeting the needs of girls both in school and out of school. The findings of this research build a compelling case and a call to action. Girls need tools, skills, and resources to flourish and achieve their full potential so that they can become happy, healthy, productive members of society.
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